This Body is Bullshit

I left him when she was two years old.

Not because I suddenly found my strength. Because she deserved better.

There was a time when I didn’t recognize myself. I was hollowed out by a relationship that chipped away at me little by little. The damage went beyond words — it left marks no one could see. The kind that linger in your body long after you’ve left. The kind that make you flinch even when no one’s raising their voice.

I don’t talk about all of it. Some things I’ve kept quiet. But trust me when I say it was dark. And getting out was the bravest thing I’d ever done — until I had to rebuild myself with a toddler on my hip.

Even after I left, I kept trying. I wanted her to have a dad. I wanted some version of a family for her. So I gave him chances. We tried. She tried. But he kept doing the same damage — making her feel small, scared, like she wasn’t enough. And one day she just stopped. She cut ties. She chose herself.

It’s been over ten years since they’ve spoken. I supported that completely. She knew what she needed long before most adults figure it out.

She’s always been like that. Intuitive. Emotionally sharp. Fiercely self-protective, even when it cost her something.

People see her now — Grace, master’s degree in forensic psychology, working in trauma prevention, fully independent — and they say you must be so proud. And I am, god I am. But we didn’t get here on a straight path. It was jagged and messy and lonely. It was cereal for dinner and crying quietly in the bathroom so she wouldn’t hear. It was duct tape and dark humor holding everything together.

I was 23. Barely more than a kid myself. But I had her, and that gave me something to move toward. We didn’t have much, but we made it work. Road trips in shitty cars. Disney movies and popcorn. The kind of closeness that only comes from survival.

I always went overboard on her birthdays. Made sure the whole family showed up, spent more than I had, made it an event. I needed her to feel it — to know she was loved, that she came first, that she was never an afterthought. I don’t regret a single dollar of it.

She’s still healing. She had her heart broken recently by someone I never saw the magic in — I won’t pretend I was devastated when it ended — but watching it break her was brutal. She told me she never wants to date again. I get it. I hope she changes her mind someday, not because she needs someone, but because she deserves someone who actually sees her.

I carry guilt about what I couldn’t give her. The money. The calm. The stability of two parents who loved each other. But she got something else. She got fight. She got honesty. She got a love that spilled over even when I had nothing left. And somehow she turned all of that into power.

She doesn’t need me financially, even though I wish I could do more. She’s out there doing real work — helping people in under-resourced, traumatized communities break cycles most of us can’t even imagine living inside. I don’t know how she does it. I really don’t.

I still worry about her. That she’s carrying more than she lets on. That she inherited my anxiety along with my stubbornness. That she’s healing other people’s wounds while quietly tending to her own. But I’m in awe of her. She does out loud what I never learned how to do.

She saved me. Not with a grand gesture — just with her existence. She gave me the push I needed to leave. To try. To stop being someone’s shadow and start being her mother.

So no. I didn’t do any of this alone. Not cancer. Not motherhood. Not any of it.

She saved me first.