I Lost My Memory
And spent seven years finding my way back.
I lost my memory.
Not the kind that sends you to a doctor. The kind that happens slowly, quietly, under the weight of a life you were never meant to carry alone.
I lost the memory of who God created me to be.
And I have been on a journey of remembering for seven years.
But first let me tell you about the other kind of memory loss. The one that frightened me before I understood what was happening.
Several years ago, my brother, my nephew, and my now ex-husband were in a conversation. They were talking about the years my ex-husband had coached on the staff of my nephew’s college football team. We had lived in the Charlotte area at the time and my nephew attended college in Columbia, South Carolina. They were discussing details of the season. Interactions with the head coach. Some of the players. The games.
I was not paying close attention until something grabbed me.
The realization that I had no recollection of any of it.
I asked them when he had coached at the college. They looked at me with confusion. Then with concern. When they realized I was serious, they were flabbergasted.
That shook me. I truly did not remember almost two football seasons of him leaving home to drive an hour and a half to Columbia during the week while we had young children. I had lost the memory of going to the games. Of being there. Of any of it.
I became frightened. I did not understand what could be going on with my mind.
I gave it time. And then a small memory surfaced. A brief image of being at the University of South Carolina football stadium. I could see us parking within the internal part of the stadium and I knew that would only have happened if he was on staff. We had both attended Clemson University. South Carolina was our rival. I had been to that stadium before as a student and I never had access to that parking area back then.
That small memory gave me hope. But what had happened to the rest of it? Little pieces have come back over time but not all of it. And I have since learned what stress does to the mind. What it does to the body. What it does to a life.
The stress of living up to external expectations. The pain of traumatic experiences. The weight of performing a life that does not belong to you. All of it can lead to a different kind of memory loss. Not the loss of events. The loss of yourself. No longer recalling who you really are based on who God created you to be.
That truth became clear after my divorce from a 28 year marriage. Once I found the courage to leave and got to the other side, I realized I had been living far beneath my inheritance as a child of God. It was as though I had lost my mind. My REAL mind.
And so the remembering began.
I remembered that I do not need to place others before myself to be worthy of love. That was never true. I had just believed it for so long it felt like fact.
I remembered that I am here for purpose. That God allowed every painful experience in my life to equip me for exactly this. For coaching women through the process of reclaiming the power to create the life they were designed to live.
I remembered that fear is not my inheritance. I am more than a conqueror. I had simply forgotten.
I remembered that what I was living through was not the end of my story. That if I kept going, if I never stopped, if I never gave up, and if I never allowed another person to control or destroy me, I would make it to the other side.
I remembered that the truth of who I am, the power that resides in me, and the purpose I was created for would will me forward even when I could not will myself.
I remembered me.
My REAL mind knows I do not need to earn my place at the table. It knows I am more than a conqueror and need not fear. It recognizes the traps that would keep me trying to control what is beyond my control. My REAL mind knows the difference between who I was conditioned to be and who God actually created me to be. And it will not let me settle for less than the truth of that ever again.
And I made it to the other side.
I know me now. I love me. And I live for me first. Not selfishly. Purposefully. Because when I live for me first I get to love others more purely, serve more boldly, and impact the world more positively.
For that I am grateful beyond what words can hold.
A Gift for You
Try this before you close this letter.
Take yourself somewhere quiet. Close your eyes.
Breathe in for four counts. Out for four counts. Do this three times and let your body settle.
Then ask yourself this question:
What is true about my life that I have forgotten?
Journal what comes up. No agenda. No narrative attached. Just what surfaces when you get still enough to hear it.
Then take one small action to honor what you remember about yourself.
She is still in there. And she remembers more than you think.