Sometimes You Need Someone Who Knew You Then

I spent the week before Katie arrived making myself crazy over my house.

Is it clean enough? Does it smell okay? Are my flower beds too janky? Will she like my home? Will she feel welcome?

Shortly after I got off work at 4:30 that Thursday, I finally stopped worrying and let the house be whatever it was going to be.

Katie arrived around 11 that night. We visited for a while, of course. Then Jen and I went to bed before everyone else because we both had work the next day.

The following morning, I woke up to the sweetest message from Katie.

It began:

“As everyone is in bed...in YOUR home, I wanted to remind you of a few things.”

That first sentence may not look like much. But the fact that she capitalized the word YOUR put a whole lot into perspective for me.

She Knew Me Before This Life Existed

Katie and I met when I worked at a nutrition club in Arkansas.

I was in Arkansas because I had decided to chase the Herbalife dream. I moved in with my coach and her toxic family. Naturally, I was going to become wildly successful within the first month.

Right?

Yeah, no.

The environment was toxic and incredibly draining. My days consisted of waking up and going to run the nutrition club for my coach. I stayed there from sunup to sundown. After that, I ran a fitness class at the gym. Somewhere in between all of that, I had to figure out how to feed my girls and get them where they needed to be.

Meanwhile, I had no vehicle. I had no home of my own. I had no dependable income because Herbalife is an MLM. You don’t exactly clock in and collect an hourly wage.

And my girls?

Oh, my girls.

They were suffering the most.

Then one day Katie walked into the nutrition club. The rest is history. We clicked immediately and became great friends.

It wasn’t until toward the end of my 15 months in Arkansas that my girls and I became really close with Katie and her family. The environment we were living in had become somewhere we could no longer stay. I found myself in one of the worst headspaces I have ever experienced.

I finally decided to leave Arkansas and move back home.

Before we left, my girls and I spent our final week there basically living with Katie and her family. She gave me her bonus son’s room so we would have somewhere safe to sleep.

Who does that?!

Katie does.

In her message, she wrote:

“I watched how you grew through a situation that was hard, frustrating and uncomfortable.”

Uncomfortable is putting it lightly!

She continued:

“You handled yourself with grace and respect. You held your head high and was an amazing mom.”

I definitely didn’t see grace, respect, or an amazing mom when I looked at myself during that time.

Sure, I was doing the best I could with the situation I had put us in. But from my perspective, Katie and her family were the ones showing grace. They were the ones who opened their home and gave us a safe place to stay so we wouldn’t have to return to the environment we had left.

I remember simply trying to survive.

I was so deep in survival mode that I couldn’t see anything admirable about what I was doing. What looked like strength to Katie felt like having no other choice to me.

Growing Alongside Each Other

Through the reunion, the wedding, the pregnancy, the divorce, and her life as a single mom, Katie and I stayed in touch.

She watched us struggle and rebuild. I watched her move through storms no mother should ever have to experience.

We continued showing up for each other. Sometimes we were closer than others. Sometimes life created long stretches of silence. But each time something happened, we found our way back and grew a little closer.

I could be real with her. Raw. Honest.

I could even admit how embarrassed I had felt about being the adult and still needing her as much as I did.

We were quite literally growing alongside each other.

Then Came My Favorite Chapter

Katie wrote:

“I then got to witness you be loved by someone who sees you. Who loves you not only gently, but so fiercely.”

This is my favorite chapter.

The chapter where I meet my love.

Technically, I had already met Jen. We had been in a full-on relationship. She had proposed. I said yes. Then I got scared and ran away to chase a dream in Arkansas.

You can go read the Ghosting blog for that whole story because that mess deserves its own space.

When I moved home from Arkansas, I was in a very dark place. I was living with my parents again for what felt like the umpteenth time. I spent plenty of time feeling sorry for myself. I also did a lot of journaling. A lot of growing. A lot of picking myself up off the floor, dusting myself off, putting on my big-girl panties, and keeping on truckin’.

Eventually, I bought a tiny two-bedroom trailer. It was old enough that the floors were starting to buckle, but it was mine.

I had bought and paid for my very first home.

I lived there alone for about six months before Jen and I started seriously talking again. Then one day she reached out through Facebook Messenger.

I was THRILLED, to say the least.

And thus began our journey.

Jen loves me fiercely and thoroughly. She loved me enough to give me the space I needed to continue growing. Somewhere along the way, I became someone capable of accepting that kind of love.

Fast-forward a few years.

Katie and I were still talking here and there. She went through a very difficult divorce, and there were long stretches when we didn’t talk much. But she was always there in the back of my mind.

In the meantime, Jen and I were building a life.

Eventually, I landed a fantastic job. It allowed us to purchase a bigger home and, for a while, allowed my wife to stay home.

We were living a glorious life.

A life with too many animals. Messes everywhere. Unfinished projects. Bills. Kids who always needed something. Just the normal hustle and bustle of a home.

An actual home we had built together.

Then Katie wrote:

“Being in your home feels so good. It’s so welcoming. It’s beautiful. It feels like coming home.”

That made my freaking YEAR, y’all.

I don’t think anyone can fully grasp what those words mean to me.

It was a complete full-circle moment. I could look back and see the growth, but I was also having that growth confirmed by someone who knew me during one of the worst periods of my life.

I had spent an entire week running around worrying about the messes, the chaos, the animals, and the janky flower beds.

Meanwhile, Katie was seeing safety.

She was seeing warmth.

She was seeing a home people wanted to return to.

Progress Becomes Invisible When You Live Inside It

I spend so much time noticing what needs to be cleaned, repaired, paid, or handled that I forget what this house represents.

Katie wasn’t looking at all the chores waiting for me.

She was looking at a place that felt like coming home.

That made me realize how invisible progress can become when you live inside it every day.

How often do we finally reach something we desperately wanted, adjust to having it, begin treating it like it’s ordinary, and immediately start focusing on the next unfinished thing?

I’m here to tell you that every Tom, Dick, and Harry does this.

We get so caught up in what comes next that we stop seeing the joy sitting right in front of us.

The life you prayed for can still wear you the hell out once you become responsible for maintaining it!

She Reminded Me Who I Had Become

Near the end of her message, Katie wrote:

“I’m so incredibly proud of you. Of who you are. Of your journey.”

Hearing that from her really put the icing on the cheesecake.

If you know, you know.

She wasn’t offering generic encouragement. She had evidence.

She knew the earlier version of me. The woman doing her damnedest to survive. Now she sees the woman who built something from that survival and is still healing.

Sometimes you need someone who knew you then because the people who witnessed your survival can recognize your growth before you do.

But here’s the thing.

I don’t want this realization to become another reason to tell myself I shouldn’t struggle now just because other versions of my life were harder.

Recognizing my growth doesn’t mean everything is perfect.

Gratitude doesn’t magically clean the house, pay the bills, finish the projects, or make daily life less exhausting. I can appreciate what I’ve built and still feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of maintaining it.

Both things can be true at the same time.

After reading Katie’s message, I looked at my home a little differently.

I started showing up a little differently. I even cleaned up a little differently.

The mess was still there. The animals were still everywhere. Nothing had been repaired or crossed off my list overnight.

But for a moment, I saw my home through the eyes of someone who knew me then.

Katie didn’t see everything I still needed to handle.

She saw everything I had already built.

Sometimes you need someone who knew you then. Someone who remembers what survival cost you. Someone who can stand inside the life that now feels ordinary and remind you that there was once a version of you who would have considered all of this a miracle.

What does your life have today that an earlier version of you once desperately wanted?