Читать книгу Own It All - Andrea Isabelle Lucas - Страница 7

Introduction

It was an icy, black night in January. I ran through the thick snow covering my front yard, tore across the neighbors’ driveway, and pounded on their front door. I was relieved to see lights through the windows and hear the sound of a TV in their den, so I knew they were home, though I had no idea what I would say when they answered. My neighbors opened the door with curious smiles, but their expressions changed to shock when they saw my swollen face.

“Oh my God! Are you all right?”

I tried to reply as quietly as I possibly could so their kids wouldn’t hear me. I didn’t want them to come to the door and ask what was happening. I didn’t want them to see this…situation. I knew it would terrify them.

“Please,” I said. “Can you take me to the hospital?”

Ours was an affluent neighborhood where people drove luxury sedans and where kids went to private schools; a place where people smiled politely, wore cardigan sweaters, attended church, and chitchatted about golf—not the type of place where battered women bang on your door in the darkness, desperate for help. Everything about this moment felt surreal and detached, like this was a movie and I was watching a character onscreen. This couldn’t really be my life. This couldn’t be happening to me.

Within minutes, I was buckled into the neighbors’ car. The drive to the emergency room felt like one of the longest of my life. My neighbor was so kindhearted and concerned, trying to fill the awkward silence with small talk. I replied to his questions with monosyllabic answers and nods. I could barely string two or three words together. I was so ashamed. I just wanted to evaporate. I couldn’t look him in the eye. All I could think to myself was, “This is so embarrassing. What must he be thinking of me right now? My life is so completely fucked up…”

Finally, we arrived at the ER. My neighbor came inside with me. I remember bright fluorescent lights and the sterile scent of cleaning products, old magazines, and unhappy patients who looked like they’d been waiting a long, dreary time. I walked up to the front desk to speak with the triage nurse and fill out the requisite paperwork.

“What happened?” the nurse asked me.

It was a simple question, but it paralyzed me. What happened? Where was I supposed to begin? I managed to stammer out a few details.

“I was home. In the living room. My partner came home and we ended up getting in a stupid argument. He just wouldn’t let it go, it kept getting more and more out of hand and then…”

My voice trailed off into silence.

“…And then he swung at you?” the nurse asked, filling in the details that I couldn’t seem to say aloud.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Everything replayed in my mind. That first blow had caught me completely by surprise. He’d never struck me before. Sure, there had been some red flags about his temper, but things had never escalated like this. I would never have believed he could do something like this. After punching me full in the face once, I figured he would recoil and apologize immediately. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

But that didn’t happen. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t step back.

He didn’t stop.

The blows came down hard and fast, one after another. I instinctively curled into a ball on the living room floor, trying to cover my head. I thought if I just stayed perfectly still, eventually he’d stop hitting me. I could feel my cheeks swelling up, narrowing my eyes. He still wasn’t stopping.

After I lost count of the blows, the horrific truth dawned on me:

“If I just lie here like this, I’m going to die.”

I staggered to my feet and ran from the room. He caught me halfway across the room and took me by the throat, choking me and lifting me off the floor. My survival instincts kicked in. I don’t exactly know how I did it, but I managed to untangle myself from his grip and escape. Adrenaline pumped through my body, making everything feel lightning-fast and slow-motion all at once. That’s how I’d made it to my neighbors’ doorstep. And now…here I was.

The doctors asked me to climb onto the X-ray table. They needed to make sure my orbital bones—the bones surrounding my eye sockets—weren’t broken. As they placed the heavy lead X-ray blanket over my chest and flashed the bulbs, that’s when it really sank in.

“I might have a shattered skull,” I thought to myself. “How is this my life?”

I felt so ashamed that I had gotten myself into this situation. I knew he was the one who had done something that was so wrong. But nonetheless, I felt exposed, embarrassed, and humiliated at the consequences of my life choices.

The doctors left to examine the X-rays, and they promised a police officer would come by soon to collect a statement from me. Nearly an hour went by. No one checked on me. I sat alone in the painfully bright examination room, left to contend with my thoughts.

“How did I get here?”

I had to admit, there had been plenty of red flags. He had trouble controlling his drinking, and he got loud and aggressive after a few cocktails. That was one of the many warning signs that I’d chosen to ignore.

He liked to be in control, and I’d willingly given control over

to him. He was in charge of our finances, our social life, where

we lived, and where we went. In spite of our affluent financial situation, I didn’t even have my own credit card. Everything was under his management.

And of course, we fought all the time.

During one of our worst fights, he drove so aggressively that he skidded the car off the road and we smashed into a wall. Miraculously, we weren’t hurt, but the car was wrecked, the airbags inflating in a jarring split second. I was terrified and embarrassed. I remember calling a girlfriend later that night, standing outside in the rain as I sobbed into the phone, explaining what had happened…hoping that she’d say the “magic words” that would give me the courage to leave him.

That’s what I always did. After a really bad fight, I would call a family member, or a friend, pleading for advice. I was waiting for someone to tell me, “Andrea, you need to leave him,” and, “It’s OK if you don’t have any money. Just go. You’ll figure things out.” I was waiting for someone to give me permission to walk away. But no one ever did—not even on the night I wound up in the ER; in fact, when I called my parents to tell them what had happened, my father told me, “What are you going to do? You can’t leave him.” True story.

I guess as far as my dad was concerned, I couldn’t survive on my own, since I had no money, no college degree, and no immediate job prospects. Staying with my current partner was the only viable option, because he could support me financially. Sound crazy? Especially coming from someone’s own father? Yes, it totally did sound nuts. But that’s what he said. Even in the midst of my own rock-bottom moment, I knew this was beyond messed up.

After that phone call, I realized: “No one is coming to save me.

Not even my family.”

When you get beaten so badly that your eye socket might have been crushed, it has a funny way of shaking you awake. Sitting there in that examination room, suddenly everything became crystal clear.

“Nobody is going to fix my life for me,” I said to myself. “I’ve got to do this myself. I don’t know how, but it’s got to happen. I need to take charge of my life. No matter what.”

Later that night, after we got tired of waiting around at the hospital for the police to show up, my neighbor drove me over to the sheriff’s office and I gave my official statement.

In the days that followed, I contacted a local support center, and they connected me with lawyers and advocates who could help me…for free, thank God. Piece by piece, we put together a plan to get me out of that relationship, out of the state, and into a new chapter of my life.

It wasn’t easy. I couldn’t just waltz out and get my own place. I was unemployed. My credit history was a disaster. I had no credit card, no bank account, absolutely nothing. Everything, even my cell phone plan, was in my partner’s name, and he could cut me off at any time. Financially speaking, he owned me. I owned literally nothing.

And the worst part of all was that…I’d allowed this to happen. I let myself become completely dependent on him. Whatever type of woman he wanted me to be, I tried to be, even if it felt like a complete lie. Whatever he wanted to control, I let him control. He had promised me a lifetime of security and comfort. At the time, that kind of offer seemed too good to pass up. Even with his erratic temper, and the frequent fighting, I didn’t think I’d be able to find anyone better than him. I never dreamed that my golden handcuffs would come along with violent consequences. I never thought it would get as bad as it did.

That night in the ER was the most horrifying experience of my entire life. But I don’t regret going through that experience, because it was the wake-up call I so desperately needed. It was the night I stopped waiting for someone to rescue me. It was the night I stopped blaming other people for my own shitty choices. It was the night I stopped thinking about myself as a helpless character in a story that somebody else was writing.

It was the night I finally took ownership of my life.

This Is Your One and Only Life

Why am I writing this book?

I’m writing this book because I want you to have the best possible life you can have.

I want you to feel healthy, confident, and strong, as every human being deserves to feel. I want you to have beautiful relationships and meaningful work that excites you. I want you to feel 100 percent self-expressed and to create a legacy that you can be proud of having shaped. Your legacy might be raising enough money to build a school for kids in Cambodia, or building your own business in America, or working to change the broken health care system, or mentoring teenagers to help them get ready for college, or running for president, or opening a kickboxing studio, or writing a book filled with stories and advice just like this one.

We’re all capable of leaving a positive mark on the world. I want you to leave yours.

But in order to do that, you need to take ownership of your life. You need to get clear about what you want your legacy to be. You need to get honest about where your time is currently going, what you need to focus on every day, and what needs to get cleared out of your life in order for you to thrive.

There are probably quite a few changes you’d like to make; things you want to start doing; things you want to stop doing; standards you need to raise; tiring, draining situations that really shouldn’t continue any longer.

I want you to make all of those changes, and I want you to begin that journey today.

I don’t want you to wait until you hit rock bottom like me.

Don’t wait, as I did, until you’ve been battered. Don’t wait until you need emergency heart surgery, or until you’re so miserable that you sink into the throes of addiction, or until you wake up one morning and admit to yourself that you’ve been married to the wrong person for twenty years, or until you’ve given three decades of your life away to a career that’s not right for you.

Please don’t wait that long.

This is your one and only life. The clock is ticking. This is it.

Nobody is going to improve your life for you. Nobody is going to build your legacy for you, either. If you want to feel different or to live differently, then you’ve got to take ownership of those goals. Nobody can make those changes except for you.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your

one wild and precious life?”

—Mary Oliver

What It Means to Take Ownership of Your Life

I got myself entangled in an abusive relationship. You’ve already read one piece of that ugly story. But I’ve since spent more than ten years in a loving relationship with someone who treats me with care and respect.

I was once a broke, single, teenage mom, relying on food stamps for groceries. Now I run my own business that brings in millions of dollars per year. After having two kids, I felt out of shape and uncomfortable in my own skin. This year, I posed for the cover of a magazine in a midriff-baring top. I can do push-ups, pull-ups, and perform an aerial routine on circus silks. I’m in the best shape of my life.

I still have plenty of things that I’d like to improve. Like anybody else, I have days when I want to dive headfirst into a bucket of warm chocolate chip cookies, curl up under a blanket, procrastinate, and ignore all of my responsibilities. I have days when I lose my patience and snap at my kids. I have days when I skip my yoga class even though I promised myself I’d go. But overall, when I compare my life today with how my life used to be ten years ago, it’s like night and day: a complete transformation. The version of me that existed back then doesn’t even feel like “me.” I almost can’t believe that she and I are the same person.

Not many people know all the details of my past—maybe not even my therapist. But when people find out where I’ve been and what I’ve survived, they are usually pretty curious. I’ve been asked, “How did you change your life so dramatically?” and, “How did you become the person you are today?” It’s a long story, which is why I needed to write an entire book. But the short version of the story is…

I took ownership of my life.

When I use the phrase “taking ownership,” what I mean is…

•I stopped waiting for other people to step in and rescue me.

•I stopped waiting for a parent, a friend, a mentor, or a fairy godmother to tell me, “Hey, you’re allowed to leave that awful relationship.” “It’s not too late to go back to school.” “You can start something new if you’d like.”

•I stopped waiting for permission.

•I stopped labeling myself a “helpless victim” and labeling other people “villains.”

•I stopped blaming other people for my unhappiness, for my abysmal financial situation, for my overly busy schedule, or for the way I looked and felt.

•I stopped complaining about my circumstances.

•I started taking personal responsibility for my choices.

•I stopped waiting for the perfect opportunity to fall from the sky and started creating opportunities.

•I got honest with myself about what I really wanted and decided I deserved success and happiness as much as the next person.

That’s how I define “taking ownership of your life.” It means that you’re accepting 100 percent personal responsibility for everything you want to do, have, create, and become. It means that you take full responsibility for what happens from here on out.

It’s a promise you make to yourself—a promise you keep renewing and practicing, day after day, like yoga. And just like with yoga, there’s no perfection, but there’s continual progress. There’s always another level you can master, and, even when there are setbacks and difficult lessons to learn, there’s grace, beauty, and joy in the process.

Your Life Belongs to You

All the pieces of your life—the parts that you love, and the parts you don’t—each hold choices for you to make. No matter how unlucky your current circumstances or how unlikely your dreams might seem, what happens next is driven by what you choose. Ultimately, taking ownership of your life means recognizing that you are not helpless.

Even if someone does something horrendous to you—like what I described in the first pages of this book—even then, you still get to choose how you’re going to respond. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying abuse is right or that it’s OK. I’m saying that in my experience, once we move beyond “right/wrong” and “victim/villain,” we get back into the driver’s seat of our lives. The less we identify as victims, the more powerful we will feel. We get to choose what we’ll say, what we’ll do, and where our story goes from here. We can reclaim our power. We can refuse to see ourselves as helpless.

Despite whatever social, cultural, economic, and historical factors might be stacked against you, despite the current political climate, despite everything that has happened to you in the past, you must claim ownership of your life. If you don’t, who will? In doing so, you will discover how powerful you can truly be.

Right now, you might be thinking, “This sounds like a really privileged point of view, Andrea!” So I think this is a good moment to stop and talk about privilege—a hugely important cultural conversation that we’re finally having—because when we are willing to acknowledge our own privilege, we can take responsibility for our role within systems that are fundamentally inequitable. If you’ve been reading my story and thinking, “What you overcame is nothing compared to what I’m up against!” please stay with me. I wrote this book for you.

I had a difficult childhood. You’ve already heard a little bit about my family. When I was fourteen years old, I felt so unsafe at home that I ran away. I slept in clothing donation dumpsters and crashed on strangers’ couches. I skipped school for months. A lot of times, I didn’t know where I would get my next meal, or my next shower, and that’s just a small piece of my story.

Yet looking back now, I can see that even through the hard times, I was luckier than many, many people on this planet. I had access to things like clean drinking water and medical care; I was able to get crisis services when I needed them. I have never been persecuted for my religious beliefs, skin color, physical limitations, or sexual orientation. That’s just the hand I was dealt. I don’t want a high-five, nor do I want pity for any of this. Those are just my circumstances.

While many types of privilege have played a role in my story, I ask you to please not let my advantages or anyone else’s disempower you by making you doubt your own potential.

If anyone had told me how big a setback teen motherhood could truly be when I became a new mom at age nineteen, who knows what kind of future I would have lived. If I’d realized how many statistical advantage points it would cost me on the great socioeconomic scoreboard, maybe I would never have powered through college and raised my son to one day go to college and pursue his dreams. (He recently started college, by the way—proud mama over here!) If I had focused on the odds that were stacked against me, I might not have believed I could overcome abuse, buy my own home, build a fulfilling career, travel around the world, or publish a book. I’m so thankful I had the naiveté to believe I could own it all.

As the second-wave feminists of the 1960s recognized, “the personal is political.” I know that sometimes we focus too much on healing the individual within the existing system and not enough on dismantling the unjust systems that cause the individual to suffer in the first place. It is my hope that this book can do both: embolden you, the reader, to take ownership of all you desire in this life—so that you can be part of the solution for others still struggling. For this reason, we will spend a lot of time discussing our life legacies.

Ultimately, this book is about putting aside all the reasons you might fail. It is about making it no matter what. It’s about beating whatever odds are stacked against you so that nothing can hold you back from succeeding—whatever success looks like for you.

You own your choices.

You own your body.

You own your time.

Your life belongs to you.

What Would You Like to Change?

If you could wave a magic wand and change something about your life or the world—anything at all, big or small—what would it be? It doesn’t have to be just one thing. Let your mind run free.

Think about it. Write it down. Or discuss it with a friend. Hold these goals in your mind as you move into the rest of this book.

Whatever it is, I truly believe you can have it. If you want your partner to contribute more around the house…if you want an extra twenty thousand dollars in your savings account…if you want national media exposure for your nonprofit organization…if you want a three-month sabbatical to study Spanish in Barcelona…if you want to help a phenomenal woman get elected to the Senate…if you want that Senator to be you…whatever you want, you’ve got to own that dream even if you don’t yet know what the steps in the process will be. It’s your life. It’s your work to do. Nobody can do it for you. You’ve got to own it all.

If you’re up for the challenge, this book is your guide to owning your goals, your time, your career, and every other aspect of your life, including the legacy you want to leave behind for future generations.

Once you take ownership of your life, it changes everything. It’s like having a key that can unlock any door. It’s like waking up and realizing, “I’ve been in charge all along. For a while, I forgot. But now I remember. Whatever I want, I don’t have to wait for it. I can create it.”

Own where you are. Own where you’re going. Own your deepest desires. Own your impact. Own your life. Own it all.