I'm not ok & that's ok.

This is the Molly most of you see. All dolled up and has (most) of her shit together.

What you don't see is the Molly who is still struggling. Still searching. Still trying to get out of bed every day. Still trying to make ends meet. Still trying to keep her shit together, and not loose her cool as a single mother struggling through a divorce with a man she thought she would love forever, correction whom she WILL love forever.

What many of you don't know is I come from a divorced family, with an alcoholic as a father, whom hasn't been an active father role since I was 13. I spent many weekends not wanting to go to my dads as a young child, and have many memories of him drinking those weekends away + my parents fighting about it all after the fact. I even have one vivid reality that haunts me to this day, as I creep up on my 30's.

"I was all of 10 years old, when I was staying with my dad. It was a Friday night + like any other Friday night we were waiting for the new episode of 'Charmed' to come on. (If you don't know the show I'm speaking of, don't worry the remake is coming out soon) but I was exhausted from cheer that week and kept dozing off on the sofa. My dad told me to fall asleep and promised that he would wake me in time for our favorite show. Usually I didn't believe the words that slurred from his lips, but in this moment he was sober. For the first time since my toe head blonde self could remember. In my eyes drunk = lies, so then sober must = truth.

Hours passed as I snored away the evening with my jet black doberman, whom I had grown up with, laid on top of me as my protective blanket. A car door slammed, startling me from a dead sleep. I woke up, in a cold sweat panting like the dog that lay on top of me. I glanced at the clock. If my sleepy baby blues read correctly, it was 11:45pm. Almost 2 hours passed showtime. However will I know what spell the sisters cast this week? (this was well before DVR). I wondered upstairs looking for my dad. I checked out front to see if his white F150 was the door I heard slam. Must not have been, it was gone. It wasn't even here.

I climbed another staircase leading to the bedrooms to see if he had fallen asleep too. His bedroom was dark a night, yet left empty and cold. My heart rate begins to race, as I now realize I am home alone. I've never been left alone. I go back downstairs, to the kitchen to grab a class of water and as I open the fridge I see it. Sitting there, in the middle of the top rack while the light illuminated its green bottled neck shape. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't fucking believe it. (I'm sure if my 10 year old self knew how to use the word fuck she would have, here in this moment)

There I was, all alone in the house my mom and dad raised me in.

There it sat, the reason they divorced 3 years ago.

A six pack. A rolling rock six pack.

I instantly hit my knees as tears fell down my sweaty face.. I thought he was different. I thought he had changed. I thought he was sober. I thought he was going to wake me. I thought we were going to watch our show together.

Yet here I am, and there it was.

Once again, he had chosen alcohol over me.

I called my mom in a panic. I waited as long as I could hoping he would return home, so I wouldn't have to call her. I knew if I called her, I may never see him again. This wasn't our first rodeo. He was walking a fine line already with his disease and trying to parent me. I remember one evening, on our drive home he almost took off my passenger side mirror as he swerved off the road onto the sidewalk hitting a couple garbage cans + a mailbox.

With my voice cracking and my tanned legs trembling I tell her what happened. I can feel her energy shift through the phone. As she tries to calm me (and her damn self) I walk as far as the piggy tailed landline cord would let me in the loving room, as I saw headlights beaming in.

My mother said "I will be there in 10". As I hung up, I stood the in middle of the living room, at the age of 10, feeling more like a parent waiting for their child during curfew, than a little girl waiting for her daddy to wake her up."

As he stumbled out the truck and up the drive with a trashy brunette on his side,

I realized he had done it again. First he chose alcohol over me, and now he was choosing a strange women over me..."

I have always loved writing, but most things I have kept personal. Until this blog.

This blog has been a outlet, a source, a way of journaling, my own personal therapy. I am always honest, real + raw with you, but recently I feel like you are still only seeing parts of me. The parts I am strong enough to show. What you just read was something I wrote back in high school for an English assignment that I have kept all these year to hopefully fulfill a life long dream of mine one day, of writing a novel.

In a world where we paint picasso's on Instagram, and only let people see the side of us we feel is worthy enough.. I want to be different. I want to break that mold. I want to be unapologetically me, as scary as that may be. I'm not always strong. I'm not always okay, and that is ok.

Going though my own divorce, for different reasons, I can't help but reflect and compare with what my mother must have felt. What she must have witnessed, endured, and tolerated. Before cell phones, before gps, before getting along with you ex husband was acceptable.

Which, who would want to get along with a man who endangers your child? I don't blame her.

I have been very open about my divorce, though it has taken me a lot of time to be completely honest. And that's okay. I'm working through it all. At my own pace. However it is now public knowledge that my ex cheated on me and unfortunately it wasn't just once, it happened multiple times.

Ever hear the saying "You don't know how you would react until you're in those shoes?" Well let me tell you, these white little booties (it's all I seem to wear now days, no really I have 4 pairs) didn't fucking move.

I wanted to run, I wanted to flee. But all I could do is stay there, with him beside me.

I tried so hard, as hard as my little heart could back then. I didn't hate him, I actually loved him more, and wanted him and I to work it out even more. I thought we were going to be a testimony for other couples. I thought this was God working through me.

On the inside I was broken. I was devastated to my core. My daughter wasn't even one yet, and I was still a walking mombie. I was always the strong one with my shit together. Shit, I was in the middle of opening my first salon the second time he cheated on me. Thanks to social media, society, and my lack of real friends I put on a mask and braved the wilderness moving forward.

I would look forward to putting my daughter to sleep, as I would sit in her nursery in the darkest of dark nights, with the glow from my cell phone illuminating her sweet face as she nursed. In a home I thought I would live the majority of my life in, in a town I thought I would live forever in.

I would play the song "Oceans 'where feet may fail' " by Hillsong over and over and over while crying and crying and crying. I'm actually playing it again now, looking like a black mascara mess. Still unsure of the whys. The hows. The whats.

Why me? Why my family?

How did this happened? How did I not see this coming?

What could I have done differently? What did I do wrong?

Tonight I sit feeling those exact emotions, wondering those same things.

The only difference is the time between them. A couple years to be exact.

But I am no more over him now than I was then.

I'm no more over dealing with the loss of a man you still have to see, than I was then.

I can't even say each day gets easier. For me they get harder.

The more time that passes, the more of a reality it becomes, the more scared I get.

The only things I'm sure of, is my love for him, my daughter, and the family we created. The ability to not repeat history and allow us both to still live in a place of love, enough to raise our daughter together so that neither has to worry like my mother did. The fact that as much time, therapy, personal growth, and evolving that takes place we will always be "the ones that got away" to each other.

I know what's best for me.

I know what's best for my daughter.

I know it's not going to be easy, but I know it needs to be done.

And it needs to be done filter free.

I wish I would have had someone like me to come to, fuck to run to!

I wish more women talked about divorce, adultery, emotional abuse, and more.

I wish we all weren't rated, and liked, and put inside these little boxes on our phones waiting for approval and popularity.

I now know better, so I want to do better.

Sharing this hasn't been easy, and I know it's not easy for some to hear.

Some who will read this are very close to us, the situation and were personally affected by all parties involved. I am sure some will talk shit about how open I am, with him cheating, and claim it is his story to tell.

I disagree. It was no longer his the moment he crossed that line. It affected me, our daughter, our families, and our future. They say when you get married, 'whats yours is mine' so this is just as much my story to share as it is his to keep private.

Just like when I was younger, in the beginning of our separation all last year, I was protecting him. Like I was protecting my father. We as women need to stop protecting the men and start protecting ourselves.

I am not saying I am perfect, I had my faults in the marriage that I have since owned up to and apologized for. But as women our roles are down played. We are not easily forgiven for the parts we may never have played.

So this is for THAT girl.

That girl that is going through some shit, similar or not.

That girl that is scared to speak out.

That girl that feels like she has no voice.

That girl thats ready for change, but doesn't know where to find it.

That girl that can't find her way out of the rabbit hole..

Speak up.

Ask for help.

Don't silence yourself.

Someone once told me, being silent just feeds into their lies.

Stand up for yourself, your kids, your family + friends.

Be the YOU, you have always needed someone to be.

In a time where society only speaks out when crisis happen, help be apart of the voice, the movement, the revolution that changes this cycle indefinitely.

I'm personally not okay right now, and thats perfectly fucking okay!

However, remember- thoughts become things so choose wisely.

xo- Molls

All photos by Marcy Harris Ortiz Photography