Cheering a Stranger On as She Starts Over

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This is about cheering a stranger on as she starts over and leaves her fancy house to live in a trailer.

About a week ago, I stumbled upon a new-to-me Instagram account called Starting Over Simply. She is a woman named Brandie who left her beautiful home on a golf course and bought a $1500 trailer to live in.

And I imagine you can figure out why, can’t you? She wanted to leave her marriage but had nowhere to go. We see this unfortunate circumstance over and over again.

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Why I’m Cheering Her On

I’m rooting for her and her children. Leaving isn’t easy, especially if you’ve spent much of your life being “a stay-at-home woman/mother/wife.”

When you realize you’re going to have to leave, you feel so foolish for having been a stay-at-home woman/mother/wife. So foolish.

As if you could have looked ahead, way down the road, and seen what your life was going to turn into. Why didn’t you do that??? Why didn’t you prepare for this future possibility?

I will be the first to say that women have to live like they’re “eventually going to have to leave” in a financial sense. You may say, “Oh, my marriage is wonderful.” And then a few months later, it all comes crashing down.

And with what’s going on in this country right now, women are not valued. It’s more like we all have a target on our backs.

My story was 16 years ago. But I still have dreams at night that I’m trying to figure out how to leave.

Would I crash and burn? I just wanted to take my dogs and live by myself.

One of My Dreams I Still Have

One of the dreams I still have frequently is about knowing I had to come up with $2500 for a lawyer to start drawing up divorce papers. I, of course, didn’t have $2500.

He kept telling me that his salary didn’t belong to me. He watched the bank account and had something to say if I got $20 cash back at the grocery store. It was his money, he said.

$2500.

But I had no other way out. I had nothing worth selling. So one morning, I got my nerve up, drove to that lawyer’s office, and wrote that check. My heart was pounding, because I had no idea what would happen once he saw that money come out of the account.

Then I drove home and grabbed the dogs and some personal items. And I drove to a motel.

I remember asking the person at the front desk what they did if someone came in and asked if you were there.

I remember asking for a floor and a room that was “the safest” in terms of someone trying to find me. Where the elevators were located. How far was the room from any other exit?

I had two dogs, a small suitcase, my laptop, and a head full of worry.

I was so naive. How had I lived over 50 years and still remained so naive? I had trusted too easily, let myself fall into that trap women sometimes fall into. He told me no one else would ever love me as he did. And stupidly, I believed him.

For once in my life, I just wanted to feel special. And he was the closest I’d ever come to having that.

What I Had Learned

I probably wasn’t the only one he said that to. I learned that he took trips to Dallas with another woman and used my credit card to buy her nice things. What a slap in the face.

He’d been seeing women for years without my even having an inkling.

By the time I drove to the lawyer’s office, I didn’t care how many trips he took with how many women.

I just wanted to be free.

To be someplace where my heart didn’t pound every time I heard the garage door clanging up.

Don’t think that women who aren’t beaten to within an inch of their lives can’t be abused and traumatized. Don’t think that financial and emotional abuse isn’t real. The constraints you can find yourself in are terrifying and traumatic.

I just wanted to be free.

To pack up, take the dogs, and drive away. I could almost sense freedom just beyond my grasp.

I’d dreamed about it. Laid in bed while he slept and tried to put a plan together. In my head, I planned what I’d take.

I couldn’t take anything that he wanted, or that would cause trouble. And the things that were important to me, my quilts and such, he didn’t care a thing about.

I was afraid of how I’d pay the bills and how I’d get a driver’s license and open a bank account with my credit in the toilet. He’d said that he would keep me from leaving by making sure debt would rein me in. And that’s exactly what he did.

Did you know that women couldn’t open bank accounts or apply for credit cards or loans without a male co-signer until the Equal Opportunity Act of 1974?

How Did I Let Things Get So Bad?

You may be thinking: how on earth did you let it get that far? And my answer would be, I just don’t know.

Maybe because I didn’t want to upend my life, leave my friends and neighbors, and start over. I didn’t want to leave my beloved garden I toiled in.

Fear of the unknown, I guess. That I’d fail like he kept telling me I would. Not having the confidence to believe in myself.

Leaving for good took more courage than I’d ever summoned. It was like the garage door rumbling up 100 times over.

I wouldn’t have written this but for this woman who bought the $1500 trailer off Facebook Marketplace and named it Cinderella.

Yes, she’s afraid she can’t make it on her own. Yes, there are so many hurdles ahead of her. But I’m here cheering her on.

Maybe you’ll want to go visit her account. I think she’s in the Joplin area. People send her little gifts to encourage her to keep going. To keep on making that little tin box a home.

If you’ve ever known a woman in this situation before, I know you’ll want to cheer Brandie on.

If you’d like, go check her out on Instagram: Startingoversimply

You can find her on Facebook too.

And I may revisit my own story later. This was hard enough to write, even 15 years down the road.