By any means necessary

Up until recently I lived my life solely in survival mode. When things would come up that I had no idea how I was going to make them work what would always came out of my mouth was “we’ll figure it out” and I’d always do it. I always figured it out, I always made it happen, I always got it done. I survived by any means necessary. This is where a lot of people get hung up on how I could’ve possibly made some of the decisions I’ve made, clearly you’ve never felt quite as desperate and hopeless as I have felt. And thank god for that because desperation can lead you to some pretty ugly places, let me tell you from experience. I was kicked out of my parents’ home the day after my 18th birthday and I NEEDED to make everything work out purely out of spite. I wasn’t going to go crawling back with my tail between my legs; I was gonna show them that I was fine. I got a place to live, I got a car, I had a job. I was fine. And that’s how I lived my life for years. I made all the ends meet; sometimes just barely, because my pride got in the way of asking for help. My pride said, “If you tell anyone you’re struggling, you’re weak. You have to figure this out on your own” What I didn’t realize was that my pride, my own ego; made me weak. My inability to ask for help was my downfall. I didn’t understand that bending my morals and values to match the lifestyle was making me weak. I played the victim. I was always so proud that we were always able to make whatever it was happen “by any means necessary”. The depth of that statement is hard to verbalize. When it came to making ends meet there was no “too far”. Possessions were disposable and crimes were simply a means to an end. We don’t have enough money for everyone to eat dinner, then I’ll skip dinner tonight and see if there’s a food drive in the morning, if not I’ll have to steal some. We’re short on rent. Well, how short are we? Can we push it to payday or are we going to have to find a lick to hit? The vehicle is out of gas, can I find enough change around the house to walk to the gas station and fill a can or do I have to post something for sale online for pick up only? When it finally clicked that we need to WIN I mean like really really WIN by any means necessary…that meant swallowing that pride that had driven me for so long and saying “we can’t do this anymore, we need help”. We’ve flipped it. We are going to win by any means necessary. We’re no longer just trying to survive, we’re trying to live! No more sacrificing our morals, warping our values, caving to our lesser selves. We are going to do what it takes to win. We are setting an example we would be proud to have our children follow. We are living a life now I’m not ashamed to share with the world. I’m able to look back on what we’ve gone through and thank god we’re out of it. And I’m able to look forward and see a better brighter future. Living the way we were living was hard, but it was such familiar chaos. Living right is a new kind of hard. Almost scary at times. And I have to remind myself it’s not scary because I’m incapable, it’s scary because it’s new. I have been capable of great evil in the name of survival so I know I’m well capable of great good in the name of living. I know I am capable of so much more than I even understand right now. I have accomplished great things already in my life and as a person and I have so much farther I want…I need to go. Because my family deserves it, my children deserve it, I deserve it. Going back to where we’ve come from isn’t an option. Now, we are winning by any means necessary.