I made it.

I’m sitting on my lounge chair, on the deck of our house, on a deliciously crisp and cool summer morning, and I feel…good. Genuinely and organically good. It’s a bone deep good and the kind that, only a short time ago, seemed impossible.

A little echo of an old voice tries to whisper that I should feel guilty about feeling good, that I don’t deserve it, that this is not a time in history to feel this way, that there is too much suffering—near and far—to justify feeling good. But I hear the morning birds trilling and watch puffy clouds above float by on an invisible river, and the echo of the voice atomizes in the breeze. Quick, make a wish!

I am on the other side of a decade I will never forget. My chaos era. Ten years of upheaval, loss, and painful lessons. Don’t worry, I’m not going to dredge it all up to show you. “Witness the woman holding her guts and heart outside of her body! Come inside and see the freakshow! Fifty cents a ticket!”

Neither will I expound on all the hard-earned truths forged through tears and sleepless nights. Not that I am a not person who isn’t driven by the need to share, sometimes to overshare, but you have your own truths, you don’t need mine. Right?

What I have is a story. It’s been an age since I told one here. Technically, this is a story within a story and it’s one I’ve only shared with one other person. Until now. Some of you won’t want to read it. You have your reasons. But here’s one lesson I learned in my Chaos Era (oh, look, I’m breaking my promise already, how very on brand): storytellers gotta storytell. It’s how we interact with the world.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly…

The story begins on a couch, with Hubs and I watching TV. Not a great start. Agents and editors are rolling their eyes and tossing my imaginary manuscript into the trash already. But this is a true story, and I can’t change the facts. (Well, I can, but I don’t want to).

Hubs and I are on the couch watching the most recent season of The Pitt, which is addictive for all the best reasons. In this penultimate episode, the main character, Dr. Robbie, is coming apart at the seams, and finally tells his friend Duke, “I’m not sure I want to be anywhere right now.” This is code for not wanting to be alive and it hits like a sock across the jaw.

We watch. We finish watching. We absorb the power of the story and then go on with our regular evening activities. Ho hum.

I head into the bedroom to do all the pre-bed necessities and…WHOOMPF. Suddenly, I am crying. Suddenly I am 16 years old. I am sitting in front of my high school locker, Devastated. I’ve just had one more incredibly toxic interaction with the incredibly toxic boy I was certain I was in love with and, combined with a whole mix of other terrible things, including depression that won’t be diagnosed for another three-plus decades, I have reached my limit. Life is too much. I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m not sure I want to be anywhere right now.

Fast forward through (most of) the unpleasant details.

In the ER, I’m vomiting up the contents of my stomach into a bucket. My mom is beside me, in tears. The nurse says, “Why would you do this? You’re such a beautiful young girl.” My mom, gasping through wails, says, “What did I do wrong? Aren’t I a good mother?”

No one says, “What’s wrong?”

No one says, “How can we help you?”

I’m humiliated.

When my stomach is finally empty (it’s not, I’ll end up barfing out the car door once more on the drive), I am released to my mother’s care and we return home. I shrink down to nothing in the passenger seat. Once home, I go to bed. There are lots of whispers and sobs in the house. No one speaks about the unspeakable to me. I stay home from school for a few days watching TV and still feeling sick. From that day on I will always feel nauseous when any Planet of the Apes movie comes on. When I return to school, I make up some obviously see-through lie about why I was away—everyone knows—and life goes on.

No counselling. No therapy.

I was 16 years old. I sent out the clearest cry for help imaginable. No help arrived.

And now I am a 56-year-old woman, toothbrush in hand, sobbing alone in her bedroom, realizing that fact for the first time. I think about my decade of chaos and of all the bad decisions and poor choices I’ve made through my life, all the character flaws I’ve beaten myself up over time and again, all the self-hate and self-sabotage that kept me from really enjoying and appreciating life, and I think of that young girl who was so desperate for help. And I realize that she did the best she could without it.

“I’m so sorry”, I told her.

Then, I did something radical. I forgave myself.

And here I am.

I made it.

I feel good.