The Life I Built Anyway

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I didn’t wake up one day and decide to change my life.

I just got tired.

Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes.
The kind that builds over time when you’re holding everything together and it still feels like too much.

I grew up in a home where things weren’t always stable.

My dad struggled with alcoholism, but he was still there. He was still my dad.

My mom had her own trauma. I don’t tell my story to blame her, but I won’t pretend it didn’t affect me.

There was love in my childhood.
But there was also abuse.

I spent a lot of my life going back and forth between homes.
Most often, I was at my aunt’s house for months at a time while my mom worked on herself.

And for a while, I ended up in foster care.

You don’t go through things like that and come out untouched.

It shapes what you think is normal.
What you tolerate.
What you believe love is supposed to look like.