Headway, the company handling insurance for my counseling business, recently requested additional information from me. Typically, these requests are routine, involving simple steps like opting in for a provider or verifying my identity. Since I’ve encountered these before and nothing significant ever changes, their prompts don’t usually concern me.
However, today was different.
A flag in their system directed me to fill out a 10-item questionnaire related to a DUI conviction I received in 2008. Fearing I could be dropped from coverage, I quickly browsed the questions, as well as experienced an array of emotions, the greateset of which was shame.
The tumultuous swirl of emotions transported me back, to a time when I shared a rundown house with four other women, just a block away from the train tracks. I vividly recalled the night I left The Spot tavern, seeking refuge from the discomfort I felt from the guys at the bar, only to find myself behind the wheel of a car I shouldn’t have been driving. Later, when I read the police report, my blacked-out ramblings revealed, “I drive drunk all the time, I’m glad I finally got caught.”
The memory of stumbling during the line test, the frantic search for a working phone at the jail, and the guard’s initial inability to find one for me all flooded back.
For a month or two afterwards, I believed I had dodged a bullet. Not only financially and legally, but personally, as not having been charged meant I was not a degenerate loser in society’s eyes. But when a letter from Kent Municipal Court finally did come, the consequences I thought I had outrun had caught up with me, leading me to further downward spiral.
At the time the conflict between who I was, and who I was trying to become in graduate school was too great of a burden. And if it wasn’t for the kind words of a professor convincing me otherwise I would have dropped out.
Reflecting on that period, I see a young woman struggling with every fiber of her weakened muscles to be climb something beyond of what she was capable. She would later realize that the dream could be real, but she had to believe she deserved it.
Today, I do believe. When faced with the final question, “What lessons did you learn?” I was able to express my pride in being a wife, mother, and business owner, surrounded by the incredible support of family and friends. Then, glancing at the line of Christmas cards on the windowsill at our home this evening, I felt a gentle slap of love, appreciating how different my life looks today—how wonderfully different.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 