The Damage Done: A Deconstruction Story

Sometimes a person knows long before they make a change that they’ve had enough. There’s a spark inside them that evolves into a slow burn. A nagging, aching reminder that something isn’t right and it’s time to move on. Sometimes it takes ages.

And sometimes a person doesn’t notice the flames until they’ve been consumed by them. That’s how it was for me.

I was hurrying along, checking boxes on the list that life handed to me. A never-ending list of should have, should do, should be. If a box lost its checkmark, I’d rush to fill it again – blind to why it had been erased at all.

Then, in 2023, my son was born. 

The minute he came into the world, something changed. My personal ecosystem went up in flames, and suddenly I wanted those flames to set each and every one of those boxes on fire.

I spent the next three years preparing for them to do exactly that.

Degrees Over Direction

Like most of my generation, my introduction to pipedreams began early. I spent much of my childhood working hard enough to get into a good college.

I was sold financial success and easy street access to all life had to offer as long as I earned a bachelor’s degree. Unfortunately for me, life wasn’t going to just hand me that degree.

Two weeks into my freshman semester, I left college for financial reasons I wasn’t yet prepared to understand. Then, I spent fifteen years earning that coveted bachelor’s degree – one or two classes at a time while working full time.

I switched from job to job to make classes work, sold my favorite vehicle to pay off the debt I was accumulating, and twice had to retake a class because adult life didn’t match attendance policies.

Eventually, I received my degree at the age of 33. It came by mail because I was too busy to walk at my own graduation. And you know what it got me?

Nothing.

Nothing in my life changed. Everything I wanted, I’d already figured out how to get without it. Everything it could get me, I wasn’t sure I wanted anymore.

I had put in So. Much. Work. I thought I’d be elated when I finally finished and it turns out I was just annoyed. For the first time, I thought that maybe I’d spent those fifteen years the wrong way – working towards a life rather than living the one I had.

The kindling had been laid.

Partners over peace

Outside of my education, my personal life was following a similar trajectory. By the time I was 30 I had been married twice. And divorced twice.

One split was my decision. One was not. Both sparked sadness, but if I’m honest neither of them sparked regret. I was happy for a time and then, suddenly, it wasn’t enough.

What was I doing wrong? I had found stable partners. They weren’t deadbeats. They didn’t lie. They didn’t cheat. They both supported my goals for the most part. Not a red flag in sight.

I had found and married exactly the right kind of people. The guys they tell you about when you’re a little girl. We bought houses. We did yard work. We attended family events and planned trips.

Still, I’d find myself wondering “what if” quite often.  

What if I just got in the car and kept driving today? What if one day I just stopped fulfilling the obligations life had outlined for me? The showing up. To everything. For everyone. Over and over and over again.

My second partner and I boarded up our Minnesota home and took off in an RV in an attempt to quiet some of that restlessness. It only took us six weeks to realize that leaving home wasn’t going to be enough. The restlessness was inside me and paid no mind to whether I lived on a foundation or on four wheels.

I didn’t know it then, but that restlessness would become an accelerant for the blaze that would eventually change my course.

What should have brought me peace was, instead, provoking panic. Thoughts of being trapped and stagnant were invading my brain daily. Why did I keep choosing this life that made my insides itch?

Was it just because I’d been told I was supposed to?

Credentials over Creation

In my early to mid-thirties, despite the two failed marriages and a bachelor’s degree that took fifteen years to earn, I still hadn’t learned my lesson.

I was unmarried but in a relationship with someone who accepted that, struggling through IVF and all the heartbreak that comes with it. At its most difficult point, I found myself certain that I had to choose a path to follow in the event that children never happened.

I researched. I combed through opportunities. I had discussion after mind-numbing discussion with my partner about the things we could do or try or be without a kid.

Ultimately, I decided to enroll in nursing school. It wasn’t a huge stretch for me. My entire career had been in the healthcare industry, close to the clinical staff but never a part of their team.  Earning my RN would get me to the top of my field faster.

If I could just get that license, I thought, I’d be unstoppable. It’s what people in my position did.

I filled out the paperwork. Attended the orientations. Bought the binders and the books and the uniforms.  But I couldn’t follow through.

The thought of spending another two years studying just to put a couple of letters after my name nearly broke me.

Fortunately for me, I became pregnant with my son on the tail end of my 33^rd year and gave birth in the spring of my 34^th.  I tried once more after his birth to re-enroll. I thought it would give him a better life if I could earn more money as an RN but my heart knew it was the wrong choice.

One day, I was getting ready to go to class. I had just gotten off the nightshift and needed to get to campus.  I met my son in the daycare parking lot and saw him for just four minutes before he went inside. Then I got back in my car, drove to the college, and cried on my steering wheel.

This – none of this – was what I wanted.  That was it.  The kindling was laid. An accelerant poured, and now? Now, the match was lit.

Engulfed in flames, I realized that the cost of all these “achievements” was far too high.

Thousands and thousands of dollars spent aside, I spent a good amount of time intentionally considering what I had paid out personally.

I had no career stability. Bouncing from job to job to make classes or relationships work left me with no tenure and no direction.

Rather than an increasingly advanced skillset in a particular field, I had intermediate skills across many fields. This looks great on paper – especially those making up college applications and online dating profiles.

In reality, though, most companies still view a diverse background as “job hopping”. I performed well at every job I’d held, but I never stayed anywhere long enough to climb higher.

The constant change became thrilling. Almost addicting. Routine became boring and repetition made me restless. I didn’t realize it then, but looking back it’s clear that I was quickly adapting to the heat. Every increase in intensity leading first to toleration and then to insufficiency.

I couldn’t find fulfillment in anything I chose to pursue – personally or professionally.

It would have been so easy for me to attribute those feelings to others in my life like partners, bosses, and parents. I knew, though, that it was me.

My sense of self was warped, tangled up in those check boxes I chased. I had no idea who I was without those boxes. I could list every contribution I made towards achieving the goals I’d been sold, but I consistently failed to fathom my contribution to my own world outside of them.

I didn’t even have any hobbies.

Sure, I participated in a lot of things with the others also entrenched in those boxes, but when left to my own devices I’d wander around my home uncertain of where or how to just…be.

Towards the end of my awakening, when I was burning inside and out, I understood that this may also have been the reason behind both of my divorces – self-initiated or not.

I was constantly choosing paths engineered to meet goals someone else told me to set. I was blatantly unable to ‘opt for my own sake’ and, consequently, was also constantly dissatisfied with my choices.

I know that this fire couldn’t have started without me and my box-checking. I gave it a place to burn and let it rage unchecked for over fifteen years.

Now I’m coming for it, hoses filled and sirens blaring.

This is the year I put out my flames. I quit my night shift job and pulled my son out of daycare.

I’m leaving the suburbs and building a new lifestyle – one of my choosing – among the tidepools and marsh lands of the Chesapeake.

I’m researching things like homeschool curriculum and teaching myself to regulate with rain and dirt and wind.

I’m carving out time for myself. And my son.

I’m setting non-negotiable boundaries and allowing myself to say no when something doesn’t feel right in my soul.

This is the year of choices. My choices. And I’m choosing to cultivate inertia, creativity, and peace.

Because it turns out the life that tames my fire can’t be found at the bottom of a checklist. It isn’t even written down.

I find it in the waves lapping against the bay as I watch my son dig in the sand. In the dirt under my fingers as I learn to feed my soul instead of the flames. And in the quiet of a life intentionally designed.