First, I’d like to say that none of this is your business. No one reading this is entitled to knowing the truth of my life. No one reading this is obligated to believe it either. However, I am a writer. I like to tell stories both fact and fiction. Sometimes I like to turn the fact into fiction. After all, some of the experiences I have lived would make a great backdrop for a novel.
I also like to share my experiences, good and bad, because I like to connect and identify with the people around me. I know that some of the things I have experienced have been experienced by others. And you know that about your own experiences as well. For a really long time I was obligated to remain hushed about the bad. However, it is not in my nature to remain silent and so my insides screamed. For a long time.
See here’s the problem:
Many of us only share the good experiences, openly and publicly while the bad are left to the anonymity of the google search. I thank God for the google search, because I spent many, many moons scouring the internet for stories of bad experiences to help me get through mine. Of course I had my family, and a few close friends, but none of them had been through what I was going through. Some had experiences that were closer than others, but I still wondered and I still longed for someone to understand- to get me. To know the visceral pain of all that I was going through.
I didn’t want to find out that my experience was unique to me. Maybe because for a while I thought that it was my fault that this was happening. If I could just find people who were experiencing something like this, and if I could tell they were also good people, than I could perhaps begin to understand that bad things do happen to good people and that I didn’t do something to deserve what I was being dealt.
But I remained silent. I had to maintain the reputation that people knew of me and my personal life for the sake of another, while I was deteriorating. And I continued to search google, to read books on understanding my own brain, and to try everything I could to learn how to change myself because I was clearly the reason why this was happening to me. Surely, I was the reason. I did something for this to happen.
I’m sure you want to know what experience I am talking about. However, if you have been following along with my life at all, and if you can do a picture puzzle, you will have surmised that I am divorced and remarried.
It’s true. Gasp. Sigh. Heads shaking back and forth. Tisk-Tisk.
Whether these are the thoughts of the readers of these words or my projected thoughts onto the readers of these words is irrelevant. I’m sure I’ve hit the nail on the head for at least one of you. And again, none of this is your business anyway. This is my business and I am writing for 2 reasons.
The first, which I have longed to do for a while, is to help another. To let you know that these things happen. That I have felt pain beyond what these words can convey just like many of you. The second, is to free myself.
My first marriage was not perfect, but I thought it was a staggering 99% there. I believed it was. Everyone commented that it was. Come to find out, it wasn’t.
I had my fair share of troubling times throughout the marriage. I got married at 19 and moved away from home- far away. From FL to PA. My ex is a pilot (and was at the time too) so, I was alone a lot. I did not make friends in this place easily. It was lonely. We had little money, I was sick often, and I was unsure of how to finish college.
The air force entered my life and things improved in a lot of ways. I made some of my best friends through the Air Force network, was afforded some amazing experiences, and I was able to see my ex more because training kept him home at night instead of flying airline trips. We made more money, I was able to finish college, we traveled a lot. Things were good in these ways.
In other ways, I deeply longed for things that I couldn’t fix. I missed home for one, and we seemed to be getting further away from ever having a life near family. I wanted my own family, but things were too chaotic and hectic and it wasn’t the “right time.” There was always a this and that, that had to happen first. I was ever so slowly slipping into a shadow of someone else’s life, someone else’s decisions, so subtly that it was hard to notice. Little by little my own effervescence was diminishing as the years went on. I was in constant support mode. I rarely said no. I was easily out negotiated. I would lay down, roll over, whatever.. because I knew I was the weaker force, the less smart of the two of us, less logical, typically governed by emotions. I was inferior. I wasn’t good at making decisions. These thoughts grew louder with time, along with other more harsh ones.
These were the ramblings of an inner self that was emerging from a toxic relationship. I tell myself now that I should have noticed sooner.
There is a lot of detail that I will not go into, but know that while sometimes the breakdown of a relationship happens over night, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it withers away over some time. Mine started to erode (at least as far as my perspective shows) in 2018.
I was really ready to start a little family. In July, on a trip, we talked about it and we agreed that we would start trying soon (as in around January of 2019). Wonderful! I was ecstatic. Until I was told that before that could happen I needed to attend therapy/counseling. Admittedly, I had struggled with depression early on in our marriage, but at this point in time I did not take this ultimatum of counseling well. It wasn’t that I had anything against therapy or counseling (if you really know me you know I am all for it), but instead it was logged as another data point on this imaginary tally sheet of mine. A data point that told me I was not good enough on my own. That I needed to be better than I was in order to qualify to have children.
Ultimately, I agreed to go and set up my first appointments. This was in October of 2018 after protesting for a little bit. By January we would start down the path to a family. Then, we had an argument just at the end of December about careers and just like that we were putting off kids “indefinitely” from that point on. I continued to go to counseling. That sudden shift from kids to no kids jolted me to say the least. I had done what was requested of me and yet the chance at a family slipped away again. Months went by without lengthy conversation about the subject. I’d bring it up (which is very much like me, I’m a talk-er and a get-to-the-bottom-of-it-er) but the conversation didn’t want to be had, to put it lightly. Then, in May, the barrier was lifted.
I ended up getting pregnant right away. It was the most exciting day of my life. That very first positive pregnancy test. Many of you probably know the feeling. Two weeks later I was sitting at an appointment that was meant for simple blood work, but instead I was told that I was in the middle of a miscarriage. I was alone at that appointment and my ex-in-laws were in town that weekend. That was the weekend we were going to tell them the news. Instead I was returning home with news of pain. I pulled in the driveway, after a long sobbing hour drive, thankful that no one was home. One visitor had gone for coffee. The other was up flying with my ex. It was a perfect window of time to rush inside to the bathroom, to wash my face, reapply make-up and talk myself out of my relentless sobbing. Another 3 months kept running through my mind. That’s what the doctor said. Wait 3 months. But to me, it felt like the window of opportunity had passed. Kids were already so on and off again in the relationship. When everyone returned, I was back to my perky self, I was asked with a pleasant smile how the appointment went and through my own forced smile I whispered “we need to talk.”
We all went inside to get ready for lunch and that was my chance to share the bad news with my ex. We couldn’t have been in the room for more than 5 minutes before we were walking out of the house and onto lunch with our guests. I will never forget the pain of that secret and knowing that I had to struggle so hard to keep it together for someone else while my heart ached so deeply. I wanted to curl up in a ball and stay there and sob, but I had to smile. I kept thinking that family is there for the good times yes, but also for these hard times. I didn’t understand the need to hush and to hide the painful reality. But I did and I don’t think many know to this day about that pregnancy.
Three months went by and it was time to try again. And again, I got pregnant right away. I was again thrilled to share the news! However, this news of the second pregnancy was not met with the same enthusiasm as the first. There was a lot of frustration associated with this one which was due to an argument that took place 3 weeks prior. I didn’t realize the friction that still lingered from that fight until the moment I revealed the pregnancy. I found out I was pregnant for the second time right on schedule at about 4 weeks and called the doctor and scheduled the appointment for week 8. I was bummed to need to wait until 8 weeks to have the first appointment because I was anxious after the first miscarriage. I wanted immediately to know everything was ok, but this is what the doctor wanted. So I waited.
There was a scheduled TDY with the squadron over the next 3 weeks and a friends baby shower I was helping to plan during that time. Things were alright. I was anxious but excited. I was unsure of the state of our relationship but we were “committed.” Things were coasting. And then about a week before my first appointment I began to experience some pains in my lower left abdomen. They weren’t crazy at first, but noticeable enough. To be honest, I didn’t think it was anything more than what a little gas-x could handle. I never went to get any, though, because the pain came and went and when I was good, I was really good and when I wasn’t good, I was merely uncomfortable. But then, 2 days later, I was jolted awake by the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced. I tried to get out of bed and instead rolled onto the floor. I still thought it was gas. I crawled my way to the bathroom, blinded by the pain, and muscled my way onto the toilet. I was in so much pain and so tired I don’t even know at what point I realized it was something way more serious. It was so early in the morning that I couldn’t get ahold of anyone nearby and I was home alone. I decided to call 911.
As I was on the phone with the dispatcher giving details of my condition and where I lived, I crawled my way through the house through the front door. I told the dispatcher that I would be out on the porch because my dog is really scared of sirens and I didn’t want her to run away if they were going to come through the door with the stretcher. Never mind if she bit anyone. She is very protective of me, especially when I am alone.
I laid on the front porch with the moon overhead in late September 2019. I was drifting in and out, still on the phone with the dispatcher. When I was in, I was giving directions and updates on how I was feeling (it took an hour for an ambulance to reach me). When I was out, I was coming to terms with the final moments of my life. I remember looking up at the moon with bright Venus right beside and saying to myself with a smile, that this is ok. The breeze was blowing so sweetly in a way that I will never forget. The moon was crescent. Venus was humming a clear blue. I was ok with it ending like this, I knew and felt that so deeply. I closed my eyes to that and I distinctly remember breathing and cracking a smile, my eyes closed, as I breathed in the soft wind. Then, I came to once again as the dispatcher was telling me help is at the gate but they can’t get it to open. I then directed them, through the dispatcher, to another way to get to the house and the next thing I know I hear the sirens. It’s the fire department. I was happy for the company, but there was nothing they could do. They set up their half of the IV to be connected once the ambulance got there. They gave me a bag in case I needed to vomit. But most of all they kept me company. They kept me alert. Then the ambulance came an agonizing 15 minutes later, and I rode the painful, bouncy thirty minutes to the nearest hospital.
After undergoing an even more painful ultrasound, and a half hour with no answers, I was abruptly told I needed emergency surgery, and I needed it right now. My pregnancy was ectopic and my fallopian tube had ruptured. I was bleeding internally. But worst of all it was another painful loss and I was alone. I had about 2 minutes to make a phone call to my ex, to tell him what was happening. My mother in law at the time arrived right before surgery. My dad was already making the 5 hr drive. My ex was making a way to fly home by that night.
I spent the night in the hospital with a ton of pain and mental fog, but I was alive and I was not alone anymore. I had support. I had my ex for that night and then he returned to the TDY the next morning. I told myself this was ok. I needed to be supportive of what was required of him, to forget what I needed. I’m a Tilton. I could do this.
I’d like to say that it didn’t get worse from there, but it did. The months after this loss were the worst of my life. I was made to believe that this had happened because of me. That I didn’t do all I could to protect the baby, and even that I was directly responsible for her death. I struggled enough with my own thoughts of inadequacy, anger towards my body, and grief. I didn’t need help to feel like shit.
The isolation increased. The marriage separation abruptly began after being told I don’t know if I want to be married anymore merely a week after the loss. I drove myself 5 hrs north to my childhood home on the farm against doctors orders. I was distraught, to say the least. I needed help and the help I had (my parents) already left once my ex got home at the end of that first week post surgery. Once my medical leave was over (2 weeks later) and I returned south, I tried to be present for my students, but would have frequent panic attacks while at school. Multiple times I got quick coverage and rushed to the bathroom only to sob on the bathroom floor, trying to catch my breath. I was suffering from PTSD from the ambulance event and surgery, grief of the loss, trauma from a lack of support, isolation, disconnection- whatever. I got into a car accident a month after surgery. More panic attacks. Active shooter drills at school in the mix of that all. I even was so stressed at one point that I suffered from incontinence a time or two. I lost 25 pounds off of my 145lb healthy body.
The separation continued for 5 months, all the while living in the same house as two passing shadows with little to no emotional support. Vows were irretrievably broken in more ways than one.
After many more excruciating exchanges and discoveries, by May the marriage counseling began, the tension grew worse and I knew then, that it was not going to work. But damn it I tried. All in all I had made the 5 hr drive to my parents roughly 9 times in the course of that school year. Every time I came back to no change, little to no shift towards reconciliation, more hurtful words, and isolation. In the summer, I spent 6 weeks away from that relationship, asking often during that time if it was ok for me to come home only to be told no over and over again. I returned at the beginning of the 2020 school year in an attempt to fulfill my contract that was previously signed in the wake of the pandemic and to give this relationship one last shot, but I told myself I needed evidence- hard proof that it was worth the work to him. After all I had already been told, in short, that if anyone knew what I was really like, no man in their right mind would marry me. But I am loyal. I said vows. I loved this man for a long time. But in the end my mental, emotional, and physical health mattered more and I was already reduced to ashes. I couldn’t escape the pain of that place, or my broken relationship. And I was constantly hiding it.
Everyone who knew me outside of my own job had no idea. No idea that I was pregnant and lost babies, no idea my marriage was separated (we still played nice and attended functions together, putting on happy faces, only to later sulk back into my own room alone), no idea I was back and forth so often from my parents up north. I’m certain that had they known, I would have had support locally. But I had to keep quiet. I had to hide. And I felt like a puppet. Pretending all the time to the outside world that I was fine.
After the last 6 weeks spent up north in the summer of that year, I was back for the first 3 weeks of the school year (August) before I said that if I was going to leave again that it was going to be for the last time. I was asked to stay until the TDY (same time frame as the previous one-September) was over. I didn’t want to be alone during that time and nothing had changed for the better so I was going to leave. Not to mention that I would be alone for the anniversary of my atypically traumatic second loss. I was already so lonely as it was. But I stayed anyway because he asked. He said we would sort things when he got back. Things didn’t improve long distance. I was still suffering from PTSD of the events that transpired the previous year as well as the hurtful exchanges in the times thereafter. Then, he returned, we talked, he said that he couldn’t see a way forward, and I made the decision to make that 5 hr drive north for the last time.
The weekend he returned went by and on Monday I put a weeks notice in at work. I told my kids, who the previous year had gone through multiple teacher changes. I told my amazing coworkers who I wish I could have brought with me to my new job. I sobbed in front of my principal, apologizing for the short notice and with all pride abandoned, admitted that I was simply at the end of my rope and hanging on by a thread- that I needed family. The situation was so volatile and my health so poor that it had to be an immediate change. I felt guilty to leave my students most of all.
By Tuesday I had an interview with my home elementary school to take place that following Monday.
By Friday my half of the house was entirely packed. (Thankfully I’m a minimalist)
By Saturday morning I was gone. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone outside of work, because no one else knew. I just disappeared from my life in Miami.
I cried tears of relief as I left. Some may think this is cold hearted, but if you knew how many times I had driven out of that driveway in tears of anguish, you may have a better understanding of what it felt like to drive away from toxicity. To know that healing from so many things could begin. To look towards forging a path for myself that isn’t in the shadow of another. To begin to heal my mind of all the harsh things I heard that came from places of pain, anger, frustration, and fear. To once again be near my support system. To once again be in the place I call home. To be the one on the receiving end of the support, finally.
There are many details left untold, because at the end of it all I still believe that we are not the sum of our mistakes and that people can change and become stronger from pain. Words once spoken, can’t be unspoken. Pain once felt, can’t always be forgotten. Some scars are too deep to forget the pain that caused them. I am not perfect. He is not perfect. It was time to leave the relationship and rebuild. I hope healing comes for everyone in our lives who felt the pain of this severance. (If you are one of the people who will read this and think more could be done to save this marriage: trust me when I say you don’t know the extent of this situation, and also.. again, it’s really none of your business anyway).
My ex is still a person who does good in the world, a person with feelings, with family, with pain, and as we all do, deserves happiness. Our path together ended and as painful as it was, it is ok. Everyone I met along the way, family included, I still value and cherish the same as before, only my interactions with those relationships needed, sadly, to adjust. Telling it all would cause more pain for some than it would cause healing for me, so some things will remain untold.
Yes, I left and felt relief.
Once I left Miami and my marriage my world burst into c o l o r. I arrived home on a Saturday. The following Monday I interviewed and received a job at my home elementary school, the place where I would later decide to end my traditional teaching career surrounded by new friends, colleagues, and even those who taught me when I was a kid.
Taking this job was seriously overwhelming. It marked a true shift in my path. Taking this job meant I had a tie here now. My leaving my marriage began to solidify and freak me out. There wasn’t regret, but there was a lot of fear about what would happen. It had been 10 years after all. There were no plans of moving forward with the divorce until after an upcoming deployment and there was no need to rush, but things changed after some miscommunication between my ex and I (it seemed the only way we were communicating anymore was through miscommunication). The divorce process sped up rapidly and things got very frantic and ugly.
I got on a dating app as a distraction. The men were awful, but it was entertaining to look into the dating world. If you are a woman and have ever been on a dating app to meet a guy, I’m sure you know how crude the men can be. It was unbelievably yucky and laughable to some extent.
I wasn’t looking for love, I wasn’t even divorced yet. I had a lot of baggage. I just wanted to see what was going on in the cyber dating world. But then I met Chris and we talked enough for me to think it would be fine to go eat some food together.
He texted me the day we were going to meet saying that Jujitsu class ran late and he asked me if I would rather him be late, but clean after showering, or early and sweaty. I told him he could decide.
He showed up early and sweaty (I now know how hard this was considering he takes 3 showers a day). If you know me, you know this was a good choice on his part- and honestly a shocking one.
I sat at the bar with him and ordered a beer and gestured to him asking what he was going to get. He said, “I don’t drink.” I felt very embarrassed for a moment thinking maybe I should have ordered a margarita at this Mexican joint, but quickly the thought bubble gave way to this is me, take it or leave it.
He explained to me how he just likes to be his best self and he is at his best when he isn’t drinking. Not sure if I believed him at that point, but I liked his self reflection.
It felt so normal, so natural. So much so that it was bizarre. I told him right away about my aspirations to be an author. He was and to this day is my biggest support in that endeavor. I let him know I was still in a marriage, although separated and heading into divorce. I grabbed a 6 pack of beer from Publix liquor, he put the tailgate of his truck down, and we sat and talked about ourselves and Neil DeGrasse Tyson in the Publix parking lot while staring at Mars.
We met for dinner again the next night. Talked some more. He told me he wasn’t sure, after taking a few years for himself after an 8 year relationship, if I was ready so quickly to jump back in. I told him I understood that perspective. I wasn’t sure either, but I knew I was lacking connection in my life for a while already. And I knew I enjoyed talking to him.
And then we jumped in. Without letting myself be stopped by all the random opinions that would no doubt be out there, I moved in with Chris. I followed my intuition. I did so quietly because even though I was ready to live my life full tilt and my way, I still didn’t want to cause pain for others. I spent every day of the last 9 months with this man. In my whole life I have never laughed so hard, smiled so big, or ate as many pork chops as I have in the last few months. We share the same interests of self discovery, learning, laughing, and being outdoors. He has seen me through bouts of PTSD, thwarted panic attacks, and held me as I cried for the babies I lost. He has talked to me about his aspirations and supported me in mine. He told me he never got married because it was never right, and then he proposed to me- the one no one in their right mind would marry if they knew how I really was.
You may have been confused by the quick succession of events playing out in my life. You may have muttered under your breath your dissatisfaction with how my journey was unfolding. You may have said that I moved too fast, that all my pain was too fresh to make clear decisions.
Please hear me when I say that you never know what someone is going through. You never know how bad and for how long. You never know if that person you see on social media is even allowed to expose the struggles in their life. But then, it’s is really none of your business anyway. (yes, I realize that by writing this I am giving you a window in.. but you still, respectfully, aren’t entitled to knowing details of my life.)
Social media is a funny thing. I try to stick with the original intent of the platforms.. to connect and be in community.
So here is what I want people to know:
I want people to know that life isn’t perfect and that is ok.
I want people to know that your journey is allowed to look different.
I want people to know that no one is better than another.
I want people to know that your perspective changes when you move from a school of thought of “why me?” to “why not me?”
I want people to know that an elitist and entitled mindset is toxic.
I want people to know it is ok to be a creative.
I want people to know it is ok to be an accountant.
I want people to know it is ok to be “just a mom.”
I want people to know it is ok to be going through hell and that nothing is wrong with you just because you can’t see a way out right now.
I want people to know that they aren’t alone in their pain.
I want people to know that they don’t have a roadmap for anyone else’s life.
I want people to know that someone always has it worse, but that that realization doesn’t diminish your own pain.
I want people to know that they can be themselves and still be loved.
I have never been happier in my entire life. I have never felt more at peace with where I have chosen to walk my path.
Admit it though, it does feel good to connect. Whatever you are going through or portraying (or not) on social platforms, I hope you find connection in all aspects of your life.
I have said it in previous writings and I’ll say it again. We need community to survive.
Namaste
~Samantha
Indie Cruz 