How Did We Get Here Pt. 1

Part One: We Were Promised the World

I am part of the generation who was told—no, drilled—with the idea that if we didn’t go to college and get a professional career, we’d fail at life. Seriously, fail. I still remember being in fourth grade, hearing that without a college degree, we were destined to end up living in a box under a bridge on a track to die young. As children, we’re so impressionable—and those kinds of warnings? They stick, deep in the back of your soul and shape your every move. Or at least they did for me.

From a young age, I can remember dreaming of having a family—kids, a husband, a home where I could nurture and love and pour myself into the people I cherished most. But I honestly thought so little of myself back then that I didn’t truly believe it could happen. That breaks my heart now… for that little girl who felt so lost. She didn’t feel worthy, but she held onto a glimmer of hope that God would see her. That He wouldn’t let her be lonely forever.

Even then, what I really wanted was to feel safe. To feel loved. And to offer that same sense of comfort to someone else.

But how could I ever build that life without stability? If I didn’t have the support, the house, the career, the everything… how could I raise a family? So I did what I was told: I went all in.

My family didn’t have a trust fund waiting for me. No one was going to fund my education. But college was the only acceptable path—get the degree or fail at life, remember. So I took out student loans and committed myself to a rigorous degree plan because I needed to be a marketable asset—for my future, for my imagined career, and for the family I had always dreamed of building.

The Hustle Begins

I pushed myself hard. I earned both my undergraduate and post-graduate degrees within my four-year tenure. I worked. I maintained a long-distance relationship. I tried to show up for friends. I worried constantly about my family and stretched myself thin trying to be useful, dependable, available.

It’s only now that I recognize: the burnout had already begun.

I became snappy. Rushed. Cold. Bitter. My grandma told me she was worried for me—I had lost my smile. But the more anyone told me I was taking on too much, the harder I pushed. I was not going to fail. I wasn’t going to end up under a bridge. I kept going.

I wasn’t sleeping. I gained weight. I lost every routine and rhythm that used to make me feel grounded. I had no room for joy. No space to breathe. Life was just a checklist I could never finish. I was in full-on survival mode. Fight or flight. Mostly fight.

And the second I walked across that graduation stage, I stepped straight into marriage. I thank God for my husband—but we were so young. We didn’t really know what marriage meant yet, not outside the examples we’d seen in our parents’ homes. We hadn’t been taught how to communicate—deeply, honestly, or even gently.

He had his own post-grad struggles. And I carried the weight of those, too — trying to figure out how to support him, how to lift him higher, how to fix what was broken in both of us.

And like so many other millennials, my family was now fractured by divorce and dysfunction. There was chaos all around me, and somehow I felt responsible for keeping everyone else afloat.

The Slow Disappearance of Me

Don’t get me wrong—helping people brings me joy. It gives me purpose. But I didn’t realize just how far I had gone without checking in on myself. I was still in survival mode. I hadn’t stepped out of it—I had just decorated it to look like ambition.

And I wasn’t happy. I thought maybe it was my weight. I hated my appearance. I dieted. I joined a gym. My husband and I worked out together. I went to Zumba several times a week. I tried to get “me” back—but the scale never budged. My body didn’t feel like mine anymore, and my efforts felt pointless.

But life kept going and we did too.

Forward Motion, Backward Breath

When our lease came up for renewal, we made a quick decision: maybe it was time to buy. The market was hot. Rates were low. So we did what made sense in the moment. No long-term plan, just a now-or-never instinct.

We closed on our first home—and on that very same day, we brought home our first dog, Lucy. A chaotic, adorable pup who turned our lives upside down for the next year or so. (Spoiler alert, she’s the bestest doggo! 🐾)

The house had great bones, but hadn’t been updated into the current decade, arguably even the last. We made it a DIY project, which we found out is forever ongoing by the way. The move was a blur, and we were still both working full-time. Boxes and sawdust. Paw prints and paint. No time off. No real margin.

We were tired. And broke. But we kept going.

Once we’d paid down a good chunk of student debt, and my husband switched jobs—this time with halfway decent health insurance, we decided it was time. For the first time, starting a family felt possible. Something we had always said we wanted… and it was finally on the horizon.

I have PCOS and had been on birth control for a decade. We had been coached that conception would likely not be easy, and to not put too much pressure on myself. My midwife had given us some rough timetables and had prepped us that if we were not successful after a year’s time, we would involve specialists. But by some miracle, We conceived on my very first cycle off. And almost instantly—the pain hit.

It was so early, and yet something felt wrong. My body ached in a way that didn’t make sense. I hadn’t even had the chance to tell my husband yet. It was supposed to be a birthday surprise—the surprise.

But instead, my aunt was rushing me to the ER.

And I’ll pause there… because that’s where Part Two begins.