Fully Chosen - Part Two

Content Warning: This essay mentions suicide. If you or someone you know needs mental health support, 988 is available 24/7.

Dear Readers,

To clarify why I am moving my essays to “paid-subscribers only”, I’m going to make a direct, vulnerable share:

My dad cheated on my mom while she was pregnant with me. Shortly after I was born, my dad left us for “the other woman” - she was his old girlfriend from high school.

They were pregnant before my second birthday and set out to build a house together - my dad worked with the architect to create the design.

They built a ranch-style house with two bedrooms: a primary suite for my dad and stepmom and a junior suite for my half-sister. The oversized kitchen had an island with seating and an additional separate dining table. On the main floor, there was a big TV room and a full dining and living room that were entirely off limits. Downstairs, in the unfinished basement, there were two bedrooms that were supposed to be for me and my older sister. Eventually, one was used as a guest room and the other for furniture storage.

Over time, that house has become a metaphor for my relationship with my dad:

Peripheral. There, but not a part of…

Once I described it as: “an artifact that materialized my exclusion.”

Throughout my childhood, when my dad was well (aka functioning within his alcoholism), we went to his house one night a week, for a few hours.

He would pick me up from aftercare and drive me to his home - a place where I had no things nor space of my own - and then a few hours later, he would drive me back to my moms.

On weekends, I would see him for a few hours on Saturday afternoon. We would always do something out and about, so my stepmom could have time alone (and look, I understand needing time alone as a parent - and, it was clear we were not wanted there).

I can still remember fantasizing about having a “real family” when I was young. A house with my mom and my dad.

My mom also remarried around my second birthday and had another baby before I was three. She was always a consistent presence throughout my life - I was so sensitive though. And as a child, it was hard for me to articulate the pain of feeling unwanted at my dad’s house and generally peripheral.

At my moms house, I did have a room of my own. And yet, I still remember envying the professionally taken photo of my mom, stepdad, and little sister. Today, with certainty, I know that they meant no harm displaying that photo. Yet, as a 5 year old, it was another artifact that materialized my exclusion.

Shortly after my 16th birthday, my dad fully left - he died by suicide, he shot himself.

I could write that so it would land softer for you but I am tired of having to make my truth digestible - I never want to be intentionally inflammatory, and my truth holds pain.

Shame is the word that wants to come out right now.

For my entire life, in so many ways, I have been seeking ”my own room” - metaphorically speaking.

Year after year, I continue “the work” - in therapy, in my journal, through my relationships, with God.

Shadow work is trending right now and it’s far from glamorous… It's the work of slowly, painfully, and beautifully unweaving old, maladaptive stories that manifest through self-sabotaging thoughts and actions.

Naively, time after time, I feel like I have “arrived” or “healed” – and then, I’ll discover a new materialization of those old stories. Thoughts and actions that come from the stories that were imprinted in my earliest years: the story of me being “an outsider”, the story where I am always unwanted.

And I share all of this to say: I am ready for a new story.

Alex (my husband) and I are approaching our 10 year dating anniversary. Our relationship has had high-highs and low-lows. Today, we are steady. Steady is new to me and I am learning to love steady.

Through our union and the creation of our own family, I have learned what it feels like to metaphorically and literally have a room of my own.

I am writing this from “my room” - it’s my creative space. I also have a bedroom that I share with Alex and a “sleeping room” where I bedshare with my kids.

I also feel like I have a metaphorical room now. For the first time, I feel “a part of” - and that didn’t happen overnight, it has taken years for this belonging to create a new psychic imprint.

I spent my entire life desperately wanting to be chosen, to be “a part of”... I have entered all of my relationships and experiences and projects with the imprinted belief that I am an interloper.

And that is why I am going to place all of my writings behind a paywall for the foreseeable future.

My Substack has been active for over 2 years. I have 100 free subscribers and 4 paid subscribers. I average about 500-ish views on each essay. That means, 400 or so people pop in, read, and leave.

It engenders that same peripheral feeling I have experienced my entire life.

And today, I have a choice - I don’t have to engage in spaces where I feel peripheral.

Forever, I have wanted as many people as possible to read what I write. Because I have always wanted my metaphorical room.

I have my own room now. I made this room - I no longer need you to add me to yours. And it has taken some time for my thoughts and actions to catch up with my evolving consciousness.

Someday, I may choose to make this an open space again… For now though, Deeper Than Shallow is going to become a digital artifact that materializes my inclusion.