Everybody wants the redemption story.
They want the part where you finally get back up. They want to call you strong. They want to call you an inspiration.
But nobody wants to talk about what happened when you weren't strong.
The abandonment.
The grief.
The loneliness.
The nights I cried wondering how people who were supposed to love me could make me feel so easy to leave.
I know what it feels like to be abandoned by the people who were supposed to be my foundation.
My parents.
There is a different kind of pain in realizing the people who gave you life aren't necessarily the people who make you feel safe.
You spend years asking yourself:
Why wasn't I enough?
Why wasn't I worth fighting for?
Those questions don't disappear when you grow up. Sometimes they follow you into the way you love, the people you choose, and the fear that everyone you love will eventually leave.
Then I became a mother.
And when my ex-husband would leave and take our girls with him, it felt like pieces of my heart were walking out the door.
Their absence wasn't just silence. It was physical.
Somewhere in all that I had my one and only son.
Tomorrow, he turns five.
And my son will wake up on his birthday in another mother's arms.
There is no easy way to say that.
I wish I had spoken sooner. I wish I had gotten my shit together sooner. I wish I had understood that asking for help wasn't weakness.
Because fighting a losing battle for your child will damn near kill you—and somehow bring you back at the same time.
For over two years, I fought for my son.
I fought the system.
I fought fear.
I fought heartbreak.
I fought the feeling that I was running out of time.
But somewhere along the way, while I was trying so desperately to save everything around me, I was losing myself.
Nobody tells you that sometimes the person you have to save alongside your child is you.
All of this while struggling with my diagnosis
HIV.
By the time that diagnosis entered my life, I was already carrying years of grief, abandonment, depression, and shame.
HIV wasn't the only thing I was fighting.
I was fighting the belief that maybe there was something wrong with me. That maybe I wasn't worth staying for.
And some days, I wasn't okay.
There.
I said it.
I wasn't okay.
I was hurting. I was angry. I was grieving. I was scared. And I was tired.
But underneath all of that pain, there was still a woman who hadn't completely given up.
Little by little, I'm finding her.
I learned that my parents' inability to love me will not stop me. I learned even if my children are not sleeping under the same roof, I'm still their mother. I'm learning I'm bigger than my depression or my diagnosis.
I wish I could go back and sit beside the younger version of myself through every goodbye, every empty room, and every night she cried herself to sleep.
I'd tell her:
"Baby, they may leave. They may hurt you. You may lose things you never thought you'd have to lose. But don't you dare lose yourself too."
Because I almost did.
Maybe I can't rewrite the years behind us or undo every mistake I've made.
Maybe I can't change where he wakes up tomorrow.
Maybe I can't have the relationship with my children or parents like I want right now.
But I can choose what I do with the years ahead.
I can speak.
I can heal.
I can ask my children to forgive me.
I can take responsibility without letting shame destroy me.
I can become the woman—and the mother—I wish I had been when everything was falling apart.
I almost disappeared trying to survive everything that kept leaving me.
But I didn't.
I'm still here.
And that's why I'm telling this story.
For the mother fighting for her child and dying inside.
For the person who feels abandoned.
For the person drowning in shame.
For the person who thinks their mistakes mean they can't become better.
And for my son.
One day, I want him to know that I never stopped loving him. I never stopped fighting for him. And I never stopped wishing I had found my way back to myself sooner.
His birthday is not the ending of our story.
Neither is my diagnosis.
Neither is my past.
Neither is my pain.
I am still here.
And this time, I'm choosing not to be silent.
DON'T YOU DARE LOSE YOURSELF.
