Yesterday, my journey finally began. I awakened in a way that most never get to experience. When you go through trauma, you sometimes forget the fight that lives deep inside you. The part of you that keeps you strong, the part that burns harder and brighter in ways you never thought it could. When you forget about that part of yourself, you spend years, sometimes lifetimes letting people take advantage of the kindness that lives inside you, you let them trample it, and break you down into nothing.
This has been me for the last 26 years of my life. 26 years of forgetting that there is a side of me that was born to stand in flames and face down everything in my path. Yesterday that person was brought to the front in a way that I now stand taller than anyone around me. I will continue to stand taller than anyone who ever steps to me again. While my heart will always be gold, that core will be pure hellfire. I will never ever let another human being, alien, monster, creature of the night, or bad depressing thought break me down to nothing ever again.
My story began the day I started my job of the past six months. For months I let someone else shape and mold me into their own personal toy of delight. Begging, scrapping, and humbling myself to meet everything they demanded of me. To the point of my health slowly beginning to decline. I was never shown an ounce of appreciation, and only promoted in my position when it suited them the most. Every time they fell, I was beat down with words told it was all my fault. I was thrown under the bus in their place. I wear my heart on my sleeve so often. I let so many see the true me, even when it means I will get hurt. My best friend on here knows only a small part of the things I have gone through with this boss. Even with that little bit of info she kept telling me to leave, go somewhere else. I didn't. Who in their right mind would take me? This was hammered into my head everyday, that I was lucky to have this job, that what I was being asked to do was a small task compared to what I could be asked to do.
I learned this motto in my head until it was on repeat. I gave my all every day, and the few times I couldn't because of my health, I was berated and made to feel guilty until I would come in and make up those hours, telling me I needed the money and it was the only way. How much would I take? How much could I take? When would I reach my breaking point?
I reached it when they opened their mouth and brought my kids into the situation. I lost it the moment they told me a good friend, someone who reminded me of my youngest, would be fired if I couldn't step up and do more when I was told that my efforts were not reasonable enough, that our area manager yelling at them fell on my shoulders. "I wasn't sufficient" rang over and over in my head at that moment. I walked away to finish cleaning the bathrooms, not enough, never enough, a failure, a sad excuse. My heart began to burn, deep inside my beast was screaming and howling in rage and denial. That inner child that picked me up over and over, made me get up and keep fighting so many times when I thought I couldn't, that inner child that shielded me from the physical, mental, and other abuse. That inner child broke lose and consumed me in their flame until I realized how powerful I could be. When I left work, I raged on the phone to my mom and best friend, and the more I raged in anger, the more powerful I became, until me and that flame became one bright, burning beacon of ultimate hope.
What was left?
A woman who wouldn't lay down anymore, A woman who finally saw her worth and the beauty of the fighting spirit inside her. She was a woman who could see her path of destiny laid down at her feet, and the word "You Can't" was NEVER going to be an answer she accepted ever again. I went home and immediately called a company and secured a job that day. I did my background and drug test right then. I received my job offer papers and then screamed in victory, my arm up out the truck window, laughing at the sheer joy and freedom racing deep within my soul in those moments. Then, I waited patiently for the exact moment I needed.
See, while I might have been a weak follower in those moments, I paid attention to the little details. Like how my boss never did any of the work herself, but delegated it to others. I noticed things like when others would answer a call or text and when they would ignore it. I noticed things like what would inspire others and what would not. I noticed what days my boss always demanded off, and when and how they fixed these situations. Weekends were a must-have days off for them, calling in others to cover call outs was their specialty, but there was a time frame when no one else would answer the phone, when no one would come to save the day, that time was between midnight and 7 am. I am the only other person to know all the paperwork, how to do it, and make sure it got done on the days they demanded off. So at midnight with fight song blasting loud, I drove to the store and dropped off my shirts. Took a permanent marker and wrote on my schedule slots "FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON", while my now ex-co-worker stood behind me laughing and telling me I was one of the bravest people they knew. I smiled, put the schedule back casually, looked at them, and left them with a single phrase, "That brave side of me also lives inside of you. don't ever stop fighting for what you want, because if I can do it, so can you" and then I left and walked out the door with the biggest smile pasted on my face. I will never be broken again because my soul's phoenix and I finally became one, and now "I AM UNSTOPPABLE!"
