At any given moment it’s so easy to feel like you don’t have enough or you’re not doing enough or this isn’t where you imagined you’d be at this point in your life. It’s so easy to get down on yourself and start spiraling, feeling like you have gone nowhere and done nothing. But when you really take a minute to think about it, think about where you were 2 or 5 or even 10 years ago, you might realize how far you have actually come.

I often have days where I struggle mentally. I think about the things I still don’t have that I thought I would by now. Things I haven’t done, places I haven’t been. There are days I feel stuck, like I’m not progressing in my life no matter how hard I’ve been working. There are days I feel like I’m not doing enough for my daughter. That mom guilt hits hard sometimes when you can’t give them all the things you wish you could. And once one negative thought starts, there are 100 more to instantly follow. It’s easy to let that happen. The hard part is not letting those thoughts consume you, not letting them win. It takes some work. I have to get in my own head and literally say to myself, “Sam, shut up. Enough of this bullshit because these thoughts aren’t true.” And then I go on a little playback journey in my head, reminding myself where I started, where I am now and the ride along the way.

When I first moved back to New York I had $200 to my name. That was it. I didn’t own a car, I didn’t have a job, I moved into my dads house with my 1 year old in tow. And I was now living as a single mom. I had no idea what the hell I was doing or how I was going to do it. I began working at a pizzeria I had worked at when I was younger. Working whenever I could, as long as I had someone to watch my daughter. Family was a big help with that. My dad had two vehicles so he let me use one of them. I started trying to do all the things I was supposed to do. But inside I was struggling really hard. It felt like my entire life had been turned upside down. I didn’t know how to be a single mom, and it was so much work and pressure. And P was always adding to the stress of it all. Constantly blowing up my phone to put me down, insult me, then tell me he missed me. Canceling some of his weekends with his daughter. Putting almost all of his focus on me almost all the time instead of our daughter. I was living with so much stress and anxiety at that time in my life and I needed to find ways to release it.

I started hanging out with some people from work. They weren’t bad people but they made it easier to ignore my own shit. Sometimes my daughter would be at her dads but sometimes she’d be with one of my parents. I started drinking with them regularly, maybe a couple times a month. Which maybe doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was for me. I wasn’t a big drinker. And it got to the point where there were a handful of times I would blackout, not remembering half the night. Which, again, not a normal thing for me. I never drank that much intentionally, but sometimes it felt so good to completely forget about all the fucked up shit I was dealing with for just a little while.

During that time I also started sleeping with this guy I worked with. I knew he was also sleeping with another girl who actually had a boyfriend at the time. It was all messed up but I didn’t care. I liked the attention I was getting. And I was getting so much shit all the time from P so in the back of my head, sleeping with this guy was like a big ‘FUCK YOU, I can do whatever and whoever I want'(even though he didn’t even know about it). So I was drinking and sleeping with this guy on and off for months. The first time I ever smoked weed was during this time too, with this same group of friends. I know, I know. The first time I ever smoked weed I was 25 years old, I was late to the game. But it had just never been my thing, I had never been interested in even trying it before all this. When I tell you my stress and anxiety level were through the roof almost all the time, I needed a little something to bring me down a little. And all those things helped. Until they didn’t.

I started crushing on the guy I was sleeping with and wanted more. I knew deep down he couldn’t give me that but I was so lost and broken and I just needed someone. But I backed off a little. In my screwed up brain at the time I thought that maybe if I backed off he would see what he was missing out on, he would miss me. But then he started sleeping with the other girls sister. And lying to everyone about it. I called him out multiple times. Yes I was hurt, but I just was so tired of people lying and I just wanted him to admit the truth. He always kept denying it though. And then one day he said something to me that literally stopped me in my tracks and was actually a life changing moment for me. I can’t remember the exact words before this but he said to me “you’re in love with me”. Like, so matter-of-factly. Like HE decided how I felt. My reaction was basically like ‘wow I can’t believe this asshole is trying to tell me I’m in love with him right now.’

Now, I can see how maybe some of my actions may have made it look that way. I was slightly obsessed with the whole situation I was in with him and I was so messed up in the head that I fixated on another guy that didn’t actually give two shits about me. HE tried to tell ME that I was in love with him – this arrogant mother-f*ker. BUT THEN I started thinking about myself and all the things I was doing and saying, the way I was acting. And as I’m processing, I begin saying to myself “what the fuck am I doing.” I was out here making a fool out of myself once again. I wasn’t in love with this guy at all. I knew he was a selfish asshole at the time. But back then I was looking for someone to love me, even if just for a moment. Someone to help quiet all the other noise and help me feel good about myself for half a second.

But then he said those words to me and it was like a switch went on in my brain. My entire mindset changed. I hated the way I was acting. I hated that I let this shitty guy think I actually felt that way about him. I hated what I was doing to myself and to my life. I kept thinking ‘what am I doing, why am I doing this?’ It wasn’t me and it wasn’t who I wanted to be. And it wasn’t the kind of person I wanted my daughter to look up to. Something needed to change. I needed to change.

A month later I was enrolled in a community college. I never finished my associates degree in anything so I went back to school to accomplish something and figure out what I wanted to do with myself. I was at a new job at this point too. And while most of my classes were at night, there were some that you could only take during the day and my amazing boss allowed to me work around that. I also bought my own car around this time, with my own money. I finished my associates degree in a little over a year. Then I enrolled in Hunter Business School to get my Medical Billing Certification. So now I was working all day and then going to school from 6pm-10pm 4 nights a week. Again, my family was extremely helpful and supportive. I graduated from Hunter, certified as a Medical Biller and Medical Office Assistant. A few months later I bought a house with my sister and brother-in-law. I bought a house! I took my daughter to Great Wolf Lodge, I got my daughter a cat, I got a job in Medical Billing where I met an amazing new friend that I still talk to. I traded in my little car for an SUV. I started therapy somewhere along the way. I got on anti-depressants. I met the most amazing man, who I now get to call my HUSBAND.

Of course there were bumps along the way, that’s normal. That’s part of life. But I kept going. I kept pushing through for myself and for my daughter. I went from having nothing to having a house and a husband and so many other wonderful things. And to think this journey started for me because of one little comment that some stupid boy made. But that comment changed me, so I’m grateful to him for that.

I still have hard days sometimes. Days where I’m like “ugh, I just want this so bad and it sucks that I haven’t been able to make it happen.” But when I stop and realize where I started and look at where I am now, I know that I have worked so hard and come so far and made such great accomplishments in my life so far. And I know that if I continue doing the work, good things will keep happening for me.