It All Started With A Shelf

So we know that I went through a tough break up. By March of 2020, I finally picked up the pieces of my dignity and I walked into a lawyers office.

I finally filed for divorce a week before the "safer at home" order was called into action in Nashville.

Here I am, with a mountain of mind numbing and traumatizing paperwork to go through and I'm very suddenly not allowed to see anyone. I am very suddenly totally alone and trapped in my house.

A house, mind you, that was still crawling with memories of my ex-husband and of the life that we had built together. To say this was horrible timing is the understatement of a lifetime. My depression was at an all time high. My anxiety was off the rails. I lost twenty pounds in two weeks and probably slept the same amount of hours in that time too.

I wasn't ok.

Looking back, I think my first touch point of picking myself up and taking ownership of my life and my space is this shelf.

So much money was spent on divorce lawyers and dividing our assets. I didn't have a lot to work with but, oh my God, I couldn't keep sleeping in a bedroom that still felt like "ours". I had to make it feel new. I had to make it feel like mine.

Intimidated, I walked into the hardware store and sheepishly asked an employee to cut a piece of wood for me. I grabbed whatever tools were left behind by my ex and I figured the damn thing out!

I was so proud of myself for learning how to find the studs in the wall. I was so proud of myself for using a drill unsupervised for the first time in my life. It was ridiculously empowering!

I did this inexpensive thing that transformed my space and it was all my idea. It was all my doing. It was all mine.