Crossroads

In 2017, I was at a major crossroads in my life. I was failing miserably in my role as an elementary behavior support coordinator. It was a grueling, thankless job, and I did not have the skill set for it. My marriage was falling apart. My ex-husband and I had grown so distant and developed so many resentments that we could barely stand to be in the same room together. The United States was a year into Donald Trump's first term as president.

To cope with daily life, I was taking antidepressants, sleeping pills, mood stabilizers, and drinking every night. I was chronically stressed and panicked and would regularly shut down. This went on for two years, and during those years, I completely broke down. I went through periods of major depression and had to take a year off from work because I couldn't function. I could barely get out of bed. I cried a lot—that's an understatement.

During my daily commute to work, I frequently contemplated driving off the Glenn Jackson Memorial Bridge. The thought filled me with a deep sense of peace. Thoughts of dying escalated, and I began fantasizing about death on an hourly basis. When I felt bad, I would tell myself, "If things get much worse, I can always end it." —Things got worse.

In the beginning of the end of my old life, I finally came to a point where I felt so trapped that I stood shaking in front of my bathroom mirror and watched myself down ninety sleeping pills with a vodka cranberry chaser. The body wants to live, and it was such an existential struggle that I stepped outside of myself to watch as I swallowed the pills.

As fate would have it, my ex-husband, who was supposed to be gone for the whole day, forgot his wallet. A short time after I got into bed for my forever nap, he came home and found me—and I lived.

Nineteen hours later, I woke up in the ICU and realized that my fear of leaving everything behind had brought me closer to death than I had ever been. I laughed out loud. What more did I have to fear? What was the worst that could happen? I had already tried to kill myself.

So, I wasn't afraid of dying anymore, and I was living on borrowed time—I could do whatever I wanted. What I had always wanted was to travel and work overseas; my husband had not.

In 2019, I turned fifty, left my marriage, quit my job, sold my house and all of my belongings, and moved to Taiwan, ROC.

My dear friend Rebecca lived in Taichung, Taiwan, at the time. She let me stay with her and her family until I got on my feet and found a job and my own place to live. That woman saved me and healed me in more ways than she will ever know. She talked with me, shared her own experiences of loss and divorce, and put up with the challenge of having an outsider in crisis mode living in her house. I will always be grateful to her.

Taiwan was a whole new world. I had never traveled outside of the US before, and I was in a culture so foreign to me that I didn't have time to ruminate on any regrets. I had jumped off the edge of the world, and now I had to learn to survive, grow, and thrive in a country where I didn't speak the language, never knew where I was, and had no real cultural frame of reference. It was the best thing I had ever done. I was fearless, I was happy, and I was free.

It was exhilarating.

Now, six years later, as I watch Americans grapple with renewed political turmoil, I want to share what I've learned: sometimes the darkest moments can become catalysts for transformation. In 2017, I never imagined I would find freedom by letting go of everything familiar.

Though today's circumstances feel insurmountable, they are not. Crisis is an opportunity for radical change. Find ways to resist. Refuse to be paralyzed by fear and, most of all, take a long view. No one can predict the future, not the media, not the president, no one. You still get to create your own future. You're still alive, you still have agency, and you will survive this the way you have survived everything else.