Dear Lorenzo,

After you died it took a medical intervention to get my ass off the couch.

Literally.

I knew I needed help, of course. I'm not a moron. I knew that lying on the futon, watching ESPN ALL DAY LONG wasn't healthy. I knew that spending money I didn't have for food I wouldn't have to prepare in order to make sure my daughter was fed with limited participation from her mother wasn't healthy. But no matter what I knew...

I couldn't get off the couch. 

And so eventually I broke down. 

Cracked. 

I called my primary care physician and told him about the bottomless pit of despair that I just couldn't will myself out of. 

And he had me come in to meet with him and the staff psychologist immediately.

And one word helped me begin to save my life.

Antidepressants.

They lifted the fog that had permeated every ounce of my mind and body and helped me begin to see things more clearly.

You are gone but I am still here.

I have a daughter for whom I HAVE to live.

And I have a mother who would not survive without me.

I began to heal.

But since the pandemic began and with it, the isolation wrought from working, educating and attempting to socialize from home, began to get to me. 

Suddenly I had nowhere to go and a WHOLE lot of time on my hands.

Time spent mostly criticizing myself ad nauseum. 

I don't know why I'm so hard on myself but I am.

Always have been.

And with the pandemic and not much to do but focus on my own life...

Let's just say I could no longer quiet the endless chorus of "you suck, you're not good enough, you're a horrible mother" that plays on an endless loop inside of my head.

Until another drug came along and helped save the day.

Marijuana.

I thank God every day that Illinois finally legalized it. 

Since I've restarted smoking...

I can relax again.

I can focus again.

And I see myself a lot more clearly now.

I'm not a loser who wasted her entire life.

I'm a survivor.

I'm a single mother who didn't give up even after the man she loved was killed.

I'm a daughter, a sister, a friend.

A provider.

A comforter.

I'm me.

And I'm good enough.

No matter how imperfect I'll always be.

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