Author: LaToya M. Davidson-Perez

Three months ago, to the day, our lives changed forever. On June 12th, my husband had a heart attack and two strokes. It happened without warning. He’d arrived home from work as he always does. He stopped by my home office and flirted a little, and then the next time I saw him, he was sprawled out on the bathroom floor, unresponsive but conscious. The moment I saw him, I was like a child wanting their mother. In truth, that was the first call I made. It was automatic. If something is wrong, call mom. She did what any matriarch would do; she immediately got me to focus and to call 9-1-1.

Since that fateful day, we have spent over three weeks living at hospitals. At first, thinking it would be a one-episode event, we tried to remain hopeful. Less than a week and a half after starting outpatient therapy, we were back in the ER specifically because of his heart. He’s long had heart issues since he had rheumatic heart fever as a child, but had managed it with medication. Then life happened, and he missed taking some of his medications for longer than he should have. I honestly think that was the catalyst. Eighteen years my senior, he forgets that he’s not as spry as he once was. We are aging. Because of his recent strokes, transcatheter heart surgery was our next step.

For over a decade I’ve held on to someone who was never mine, someone I should never have held in such regard. While there were some wonderful moments, they were far less than the pain I’ve carried throughout its duration. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter what you want, especially when you’re too blind to see that you’re not wanted.

My self worth was always defined by external forces, by other people, by two people. And since both of those relationships failed, I felt that I too was a failure. That I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t worth it, that I was undesirable. With my formative years now decades behind me, I see where things took a developmental turn for the worst.

I know, it’s been almost a year. It’s not that my creativity or my love of writing has gone, it’s just been suppressed. I simply haven’t been writing anymore. So, what brings me out of my writing hiatus is the need to make sense of something that requires me to go old school, pen-to-paper, as they would say. What does one do with the knowledge that something that was once important is now missing entirely from your life? It’s like coping with death. The person that I am now is not the same as the person I was yesterday. There’ve been some hard lessons learned and a coldness that has been added to the way that I view some aspects of life.

I’ve been in an unhealthy mental place for the past couple of weeks. And to think, I’ve recently started exercising in the mornings. It has impacted my ability to work, to be at peace, and to maintain my sanity. So what do I do with everything that I’m feeling? Where do I put the sadness, the disappointment? How do you find the silver lining when all you can do is cry, hurt, and feel like a loser?