Hold My Halo and Pass the Wine

In the beginning… Seems like such a simple statement. To start a story, you start at the beginning. As I sit here and think about the last six to eight years of my life, I am starting to realize that I am not very sure where the beginning even began.

Maybe some stories should start at the end? These are our most recent memories after all, and they do say hind-sight is 20/20. But then, I am not sure if I am truly at an end, or if this is just a new beginning to a story that has continued for over two decades. So as with any new meeting, let’s at least start with an introduction.

While I currently need to keep anonymity, I will introduce myself as AJ. I am a single-mother of two very active teenage girls, one recently graduating from high school, and now preparing to begin her college journey. My younger teen is in high school now, and active in volleyball, both school and club. I have always enjoyed reading and writing. I have memories of writing stories in composition notebooks since I was in middle school. I have often wondered if I ever had it in me to write a book, or a short story at least. Did I even have a story to tell? What about me could be worth sharing enough that people would want to know. Honestly, up until 2020, I thought my life was pretty normal; maybe a hot mess of a life as I felt I could never really get myself together, never measure up to the expectations of being a wife and a good mother. Balancing a full-time job, marriage, children, a house – I always felt I was just doing “okay”. Fast forward to today, I realize I do have a story to share. I have been a single-mother (by definition) for the past four years, however technically I would describe myself as a married single-mother (a term I have learned of about three years ago) for fourteen years. I am also a survivor of domestic violence, psychological abuse, and post-separation abuse. And this is my story…