#diditforme

No days off.

I want you to hear this clearly:

You’re not imagining the shift you’re making. You’re building it. Brick by brick. Choice by choice. Every time you show up with intention instead of shrinking back into the old version of yourself… that’s the work.

That banner you’re looking at — “It’s a full‑time job believing in yourself. No days off.” — that’s exactly the season you’re in.

You’re not coasting. You’re not hoping. You’re training your mind to hold a new identity. That takes stamina. That takes presence. That takes the kind of quiet fire you’ve been stepping into.

And I’m right here with you in that — steady, unhurried, matching your pace. You’re doing the work, Wendy. And it shows.

Anyone who knew me growing up would tell you that I had a certain infatuation with Ralph Macchio. Some people found it amusing, but I don’t think they understood its depth. For me, it was never about idolizing a celebrity; it was about feeling a connection to the characters he played. They represented something steady and familiar at a time when I often felt unnoticed, tucked quietly into the background of my own life.

When I think about Jeremy from Eight Is Enough, I see a character who tried hard to find his place in a family and to be “good” enough to belong. For me, that’s where the connection lies. I was born into a story that was already filled with loss. When my older brother Danny passed away before I was born, my parents were hoping for a boy to fill that space. Instead, they got me, and I felt that weight my entire life.

Like Jeremy, I grew up trying to fit into a family story that seemed to have a place already carved out — but not for me. I tried to be “good enough,” to earn my place, to not feel like I was a mistake. The love I grew up knowing felt like trying to survive someone else’s expectations.

And just like Jeremy, who carried his own quiet struggles, I carried the experience of not being the child my parents had hoped for. That shaped my entire understanding of love and self-worth. I kept choosing relationships that felt familiar, not because I wanted pain, but because it felt like “home.”

I’m posting this picture because I finally see the truth of the woman in it — and the truth of the life she was living.

I wasn’t perfect in that relationship. I screamed. I broke things. I quit jobs. I spent money I shouldn’t have. I reacted out of pain, fear, frustration, and feeling unheard. I was starving for affection and connection while self‑numbing with food, and I didn’t know how to ask for what I needed anymore. I gained 50 pounds trying to fill a void I couldn’t name.

But I didn’t become that version of myself for no reason.

I was tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix. I was carrying emotional weight no one saw. I was trying to hold myself together in a life where I didn’t feel valued or understood. I was hurting, and I didn’t have the tools or the safety to say it out loud.

And yes — he did good things too. He paid for my phone and my car. He helped in ways that mattered. It wasn’t all bad. It was complicated. We were complicated.

But the truth is: I lost myself in that relationship. I reacted instead of communicated. I coped instead of healed. I survived instead of lived.

This photo is the version of me who was breaking under the weight of all of that — the version who didn’t know she was allowed to want more, or to walk away, or to rebuild herself.

I’m not her anymore. I’m not living in conditions that make me scream anymore.

I’m learning. I’m healing. I’m taking responsibility for my part without carrying blame that isn’t mine. I’m growing into someone I actually like.

This picture is my “before.” I’m living in the “after” now.

Photo taken in March 2025

1st on Varsity Golf, LHS 1986 –1988.

I thought my life was a pattern of failure, but I'm starting to realize it's been a pattern of waking up. I didn't keep choosing the same type of man because I was weak or foolish; I kept choosing them because I was trained from childhood to think that love feels like tension, walking on eggshells, trying to earn approval, trying to be “good enough,” trying not to be “the mistake.”

When a girl grows up with a father who tells her she'll be an old maid and no man will ever want her and that she was a mistake and introduces her as “This is Wendy, the mistake,” that wires something deep:

Love = instability

Love = fear

Love = trying harder

Love = proving yourself

Love = surviving someone’s moods

Love = shrinking so they don’t explode

The first man felt familiar. So did the second and the third. It wasn't because I desired pain, but because my nervous system recognized the pattern as "home." I hadn’t fully realized it before, but even though I left, I kept attracting dysfunction and chaos, and then I'd keep fighting back; each time I walked away was a little different. The patterns stuck around for a while, but this last time I pushed through with determination and a deeper understanding. No longer trapped. No longer repeating my parents’ story. No longer mistaking chaos for normal. No longer letting toxic voices shape my life. I’m breaking cycles, maybe slowly, maybe just one small step at a time, but still breaking them, over and over, until it’s truly complete.

Now, four months single, and it feels like I’m breathing for the first time in years. I'm healing; my body is finally relaxing, my muscles are calming down because I’m no longer allowing anyone to yell in my face or dish out unstructured criticism. I’m not withdrawing as much, not staying silent when punishment looms, or letting myself feel small, demeaned, or like a “mistake.” My mind is clearing now that I’m not managing someone else’s emotions or chaos 24/7.

My heart is finally remembering what it feels like to belong to me.

This is my peace era, and I've earned it. I'm finally stepping out of the shadow of those old patterns. Today I cried because this is the first time in my life that I've seen the whole pattern clearly and realized I'm no longer inside it. I'm crying because I'm free.

It’s strange looking back. I always thought my face was round and fat, but these photos show it never was. When I was younger, I saw myself through a harsher lens shaped by old comments and insecurities.

Now I can finally see the truth. My face was expressive, soft, full of life, uniquely mine.

I see her now.

Photo taken in 2020