In the Midst of Good and Bad

Today is the launch of the last book in the trilogy to The Velieri Uprising Series and I have to tell you, it’s just another day in my house. Although I’ve cut my hours since publishing, I still own and run my business, and train some of the most amazing clients that, some of them, have been with me for over ten years. My husband headed off to work this morning as usual, and my girls have their own lives to navigate. I have deadlines for the next three books on the calendar, and after training, I’m editing the next one that will be releasing in the Spring. Still, I cannot stop smiling today and I couldn’t stop smiling yesterday.

Something has changed in me in the last four years. Let me set the stage for you . . .

When I was a Junior in high school, I had the idyllic family—or so I thought. My parents were known and loved throughout the community, I cherished the home that my father built for us that I’d lived in since I was born, and I had so much hope for the future. My brothers were both gone to college and I was just now getting used to being the only child. One day I woke up to find my mom leaving the house. I ran out to ask her where she was going since we often did things together on Saturday mornings and I could tell that she didn’t want to tell me. After a bit of time, the truth came out. Something irreparable had happened between my parents and she was moving out. For the next month, I kidded myself, and when people would ask me what was wrong, I would shrug it off and say nothing. One friend asked, “Do you think they’ll get a divorce?” I chuckled and with all honesty said, “No way. They just need to work some things out.”

I’ve never felt so alone in all of my life. Something strange happens to very normal, very amazing people in the midst of divorce—they turn into strangers. I suddenly didn’t know these two people who raised me. Each person has their own way of coping and my way, was to write stories and put on a face during the day even though my heart was shattered. My brothers kept away. I don’t blame them. However, it felt like I had lost my parents and my brothers all at the same time. A big decision was whether I would move out with my mom or stay in the house with my dad. I recognize now that for someone like me, this was an almost impossible decision. I felt guilty either way—devastated for both parties. So the way I decided was to believe that my brother was coming home for the summer and he would keep my dad company. Therefore the only one who would be alone, would be my mom. So I chose to move out with her. I’ll never forget the feeling of packing my things and hauling them away from this home that I adored. I was convinced that they would be back together by the end of summer, so this was just a moment in time.

They never got back together. My brothers never reached out. My parents fought in ways that I had never seen. And I was in a perpetual cycle of trying to speak calm and rational to the both of them. My writing was the only thing that helped me escape.

I had a teacher in my senior year ask me why I wasn’t there mentally. He was the first and only to ask and I couldn’t hold it back. I ended up balling and confessing that my parents were divorcing and seemed to hate each other. My mom spent most days and nights working or locked in her room. My father was quiet and simply handed me papers from his attorney to hand to my mother. By the grace of God, I met my future husband at the end of my senior year. This was a light in the darkest year yet. He noticed things that I didn’t. Without my urging, he told my dad that it’s best he not place me in the middle of them by giving me his lawyer’s papers.

After a lot of fear, I confronted my mom about coming out of her room and taking care of herself, to which she responded poorly. But then the next day, she apologized and agreed to take care of herself. At seventeen and eighteen years old, I didn’t see it, but as I got older, I realized how much I was thrown into parenting my parents. If only they had waited just one year till I graduated, right? Maybe I would have been able to disappear too.

The night of my graduation, my adopted auntie came up to me and told me about her wrist surgery the following day. Her and her sister Luanne, had been my refuge when I was a little girl in a house full of brothers. The next day, she had an aneurysm on the table and died by the end of the summer. My writing continued to grow and expand. Every story swept me away for a while.

There would be moments, here and there, over the years when the divorce would cause chaos. I had my first panic attack on the drive to my dad’s wedding. I didn’t know that I was having one at the time, but I couldn’t breathe or stop crying. Strangely enough, no one knew because I pulled myself together afraid that I would make him feel bad on his day. My dad called me over for a picture at his wedding and only I can tell that my face was cherry red with emotion.

I kept writing. Chapters would just pour out of me and I swear to you, this is the reason I would keep going and smile every day.

In November of 2004 when I was pregnant with my first daughter, after getting married the year after my dad, I had a plan to come home and tell my brothers and dad that I was pregnant at Thanksgiving. Life had different plans and I got a call in the evening telling me that my dad had been killed in a car accident on his way home for lunch. The first words out of my mouth was that I never got a chance to tell him about his granddaughter.

It was by this time that years and years of trauma were starting to take their toll. I was grinding my teeth at night, and living in a constant state of fight or flight. Yet, I grounded myself daily by writing, never even thinking that one day my books would get published. When my daughter was three months old I finished my first novel.

I very rarely talk about these things anymore.

For some reason in 2020, when I was picked up by my publisher, they came up again. Publishing my books and allowing others to possibly hate the very thing that got me through those years and more, suddenly panicked me. I was waking in the middle of the night with crippling anxiety. During the day I kept myself busy with my business and writing, but it was at night that the darkness fed on my fear. It was so bad that at one point, I told my husband that I no longer wanted to publish them. I would simply take the eleven books that I’d written over the years, place them on my shelf, and never let a soul touch them. However, one night I woke to the words, “Other’s need them.” This is not to say that I feel I have more to offer than anyone else, rather this is to say that I was being called out for living directly in fear.

If you know The Velieri Uprising Series, you know that it talks about our unconscious demons and how they manipulate us into never understanding our greater selves. Well, I can tell you that it took effort and hard work to calm my spirit and let go of control over these books. For several months I exhumed old wounds, seeing them now from an older and wiser perspective. I no longer let them lay invisible and dormant within me.

For nearly a ten year span, I struggled with anxiety in the middle of the night, but today, I no longer suffer from it. My release dates for book one and two were overshadowed by fear and anxiety. Until this one. Oddly, the finishing of this third book has been like the finishing of my excavation. I was all smiles yesterday, and all smiles today. It’s as if my spirit is thanking me for actually taking the time to heal and using writing as a tool.

I believe everyone is intended to create. We are creators by nature. Creativity expands us in ways that nothing else can. Sometimes it is our traumas that convince us we have no gifts or creativity.

Some people have asked me about the violence in The Velieri Uprising. If you’ve gone to hell and back, you know what violence feels like. What you experience in your life, can sometimes feel pretty darn violent. Yet it is the redemption of our true selves that is the greatest gift after the war and sometimes creativity is our strongest weapon.

You have what it takes to rise. You have what it takes to find your power. Sometimes it just takes a little upheaval. You are the Hero or Heroine of your own story. Don’t let the muck defeat you. Use whatever your gifts are to help you in the midst of good or bad.

All my love,

Tessa