Surviving the Storm of Change- The Maturity of Embracing Myself &Breaking the Cinderella Myths.

Just for today, allow yourself to embrace all that you are every moment. Know that you are a vessel of light. Allow yourself to release all doubts about your ability, the mistakes of the past, the fear of the future.- Iylana Vanzant

Ever since I was five years old, and read the story of Cinderella. I knew I wanted to be rescued by a prince who whisked me off and give me the title of wife. I kept that premise and notion as the dream I’d been chasing. A wife in waiting. At forty-eight I’m single, never been married, and reality has knocked me off my feet. To date, I’ve been in two serious long-term relationships. The first one I stayed for ten years. It began as a teenage love that grew into my adulthood. The turbulent relationship produce six beautiful children, major drama, trauma, and made me lose hope in the Cinderella theory of love. I canceled fairy tales in my mind, especially when I understood loving someone isn’t always enough.

I now had to embrace being a single mother and carry the side effects of life-changing right before my eyes. The wind blew out of challenges every time I turned around dealing with a son who had medical issues, raising six children while making a hell of a lot of mistakes. There in my thirties, it hit me with a shit storms and learning to weather the challenges. How could I survive raising a family? Here I am watching the world manage and I kept hitting a brick wall.

I wanted to add wins, but it felt like every time I took a breath, I was losing. Where was the prince charming that I spoke about, and why were the glass slippers exchanged for knock-off sneakers?

Life is unfair and grueling and in the end, all you have is the need to survive or sink. Let me be clear: there has never been a time when life got hard that I didn’t want to choose the option to sink. To drown in every bit of my sorrows. The moments of sadness and grief suffocated me I won’t pretend that I was superwoman. Those difficult days, hours and minutes knocked me on my ass. I became a survivor by default because sinking meant losing yet again.

In all the storms of change, I couldn’t forgive myself for all the times I became lost and depressed while raising children…