December 27th has turned out to be a very signficant day for us.
December 27, 2017. The day she told me what he was doing to her. The day I confronted him. The day he admitted it. The day that I left him for good. The day our lives changed forever.
The following year was pretty major. I finalized my divorce, got my first cancer diagnosis, had 2 surgeries, kicked cancer’s ass and repainted and repaired every surface on the inside of the home that we’d lived in for 18 years and got it on the market to sell. In November of that year, we finally found a buyer.
In most cases, you buy a home, improve it and over time, it increases in value and then you sell at a profit and walk away with money to restart your life. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case here. The housing market had tanked, getting a buyer had proved difficult, the sale price wasn’t much different than our original purchase price, and most of what we were making on the sale was being diverted to cover a certain someone’s habit of not paying his taxes (or his lawyer). To boot, the mortgage was in my name only; so this house had become a way for him to majorly fuck with me and my credit. Whilst dealing with cancer surgeries and treatments, working non-stop, getting the house sellable, and being a single mom trying to keep the kids sane and fed, I was also dealing with constant foreclosure notices, running from the car repo man and the IRS harassing me to cover his unpaid business taxes for a business I was no longer a part of.
Getting free of this house was key to getting control of my credit, and my own life. But I was losing a lot. I was walking away with virtually nothing. So when I saw that the closing date for the house sale was December 27, 2018, just a year after our lives exploded on that very day, I realized that if I was going to survive all of this, I had to look for the wins, even in the losses. The win was freedom. And that was MAJOR. So I deemed that fateful day, the day our lives exploded; Trishmas. And instead of a day associated with pain, it became a day associated with freedom. I even started my own little countdown
The next few years, this pattern continued. Wins had to be found within lots of loss. And I had to keep using my sense of humor and do my best to laugh my way through it all.
And then finally, last December, after 2 more cancer diagnoses, 5 years of absolute nonstop and unbridled bullshit and loss, after loss, after loss, I got full custody of my kids and was granted the ability to move to New York where we could finally find affordable housing and the support of family. It was an absolute shit show of a December, with last minute changes and insanity that ended up costing us BIG, but when all was said and done, do you what day we arrived in our new home?
December 27, 2022. Trishmas.
The Trishmas of all Trishmases. The official holiday of freedom for my family.
My gratitude is immense. And I’m happy to be spending this Trishmas with my Mom, someone who was integral to making last Trishmas a success.
The road to freedom is sometimes a lot longer and a lot harder than we think it will be. So do your best to find the wins, no matter how hard they are to find. Do your best to find your happy, no matter how hard it may be to find. Do your best to be grateful, no matter how hard it is to muster gratitude.
The more you notice the good… the more good there is to notice.
Merry Trishmas, everyone!
