Your Timeline Does Not Define Your Progress
I was raised in a generation where we were taught there was a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things when it came to living your life.
For example,
· You date
· You get engaged.
· You spend two years minimum planning the wedding.
· You get married.
· You buy a house.
· You establish your career.
· Then you have children
Unfortunately, that timeline in today’s society is unrealistic. Not many people follow it, not many people even care to follow it. However, when I was growing up this timeline hung over my head like a dark cloud determining everything I did.
So, let’s talk about it.
When I finally decided to get clean from drugs, the thought of having children weighed strongly on my heart. I knew I wasn’t in a place to have kids; I knew I wasn’t mentally or emotionally ready for children. And I had just finally had some clean time. But when I was told I had a very unlikely chance of ever conceiving children if I didn’t start now, I panicked, and my timeline went out the window.
Thankfully for me, I wasn’t raised with this timeline though; I had formed this timeline myself based on the exact version of what my mother was not. Sometimes I feel like it was blessing that my family didn’t push me to follow the “societal timeline” and sometimes I feel like maybe it was curse. I didn’t have to deal with the stress of possibly letting my family down, and after a long battle with addiction I had already felt like a failure enough, but I did have to deal with the guilt of letting myself down, over-and- over again. I wanted to do everything right so I could prove that I wouldn’t be like my mother. I would be better than her and give my children the life I felt like I deserved growing up. So, when I found out my chances of that weren’t very likely. I did what I thought was best. I jumped into a relationship with someone who I hadn’t really been serious with prior and then a year later, we got engaged. We began trying to have a baby and before my wedding I found out I was pregnant. Neither of us had a career, shit I couldn’t even get him to keep a job, I was going to school full time and working as a CNA, but we lived in my grandmother’s house, we were far from responsible adults. I had my son, we got an apartment, and then eventually our marriage fell apart, and we separated.
For so long, the timeline of these events stressed me out. I felt like I was turning into my mom by providing the same split home situation she had provided for me. I knew what my child was about to go through because I lived it, and I hated myself for it. The guilt of making my child suffer through the mental abuse I constantly went through because of my parents’ divorce, led me to embrace my “people pleasing” behavior with my ex-husband. I hid things in my life from him, for fear of him involving my son in our differences, I told him what he wanted to hear to keep him happy so my son wouldn’t see him depressed like I had seen my father for so many years, I let him live in this fantasy world that eventually we would get back together in hopes that he wouldn’t be able to manipulate our son into hating me for leaving the same way my father did to me. Eventually it became exhausting, I was sick of the arguments, and the micro-aggressions, I was sick of the verbal abuse, and the constant questioning even though we weren’t together, I was sick of getting along for a few months and then hating each other for the next few months but most of all I was just so tired from trying to pretend that everything was okay when it wasn’t.
Deep down I hated him. I hated him for everything he did to me, to our family and in the end to our son. I hated the image he had given me of marriage, I hated him for the bad taste in my mouth when people asked if I would ever get married again. And I hated him for messing up the timeline that would prove I was better than my parents.
It’s been 13 years since I married him.
I’ve thought about getting married again.
I’ve thought about how I would feel being the wife, being legally bound to someone else all over again.
I don’t know if it’s something I truly want.
Over the last 13 years I have blown up that timeline, I have had two more children. Two children with a man who has been in and out of my life due to drug addiction, prison time, and just pure need for distance. Over the last 13 years we have made many places home, including a few hotels when we were homeless, we have traveled in and out of careers, we have thought about buying a house, and where we want to live, and moving across the country. I have gone to school on and off, changed course of study numerous times and you know what? Throughout all of it, I have built a life for my kids that is so much better than the life my mom gave me. Do my kids still have some trauma of their own? Of course, they do. I am learning through my own trauma, breaking cycles and trying to be better for them. However, my kids never see me drunk and stumbling across the house, my children never get themselves ready for school in the morning without me helping them out, they never have a hungover mom on a Wednesday who is puking in the bathroom in between getting their toothbrushes ready and packing their lunches, my kids never have to turn the TV up to 50 to drown out the music and the people partying in my living room.
I have realized throughout the years.
The timeline doesn’t matter.
The timeline doesn’t define how much you love your children, how far you will go in life, how much success you will have, or how good your career is. It doesn’t stop you from ever owning a house or having a divorce. It doesn’t decide if your engaged for 2 years or 20 years.
Your timeline is just that. YOURS!
You can change it as many times as you need to as long as you’re continuing to make progress. You’re still moving up; your accomplishing goals and setting new ones.
My timeline might be a mess.
It might have taken me a million different alterations.
But I’ve accomplished all that I ever wanted. To be better than my mother. and here I am <3
