Friend #9 - Amanda

Strength comes in many different forms. 

Amanda was a starry-eyed ASU freshman when a friend of hers asked her to go on a church trip to San Diego.  Even though Amanda had never been particularly religious, a trip to San Diego sounded pretty good to her.  It was on that trip that she met the man she would eventually marry.  He was Russian, here in Arizona on a work visa.  He was fourteen-years her elder and he was deliciously exotic. 

Unfortunately, this isn’t a love story.

Amanda’s Russian admitted he was really only interested in the church so he could meet girls.  Amanda is a brassy, no-nonsense New Yorker so I doubt she was ever naïve…but at the time, she was young and she didn’t really recognize the power the age difference would hold over her.  She dated her Russian on and off for four years and then when she was twenty-one and nearing her college graduation, she found out she was pregnant. 

She had wanted to go to grad school but her Russian wanted to get married.  There was no pressure from Amanda’s family but there is a persistent societal pressure for women to get married after college.  It seemed to be the next step.  Being pregnant, it was only natural that Amanda would want to check that box off her list.  She thought it was for her benefit…and for the baby’s.  So even though she had a degree in social work, Amanda married her Russian, had a son and was relegated to a housewife…and slowly Amanda’s life drifted into what was expected…but not what made her happy.

Amanda now wonders if it was really love or the desire to try to do the right thing that kept her moving deeper and deeper into the Russian’s clutches.  He was selfish and unkind.  Amanda said she was in the delivery room having their second child when she realized she wanted to divorce her husband.  Three months later she was sitting across from a divorce attorney.

Amanda believes a lot of women would have lived with the unhappiness.  She had two small children and no income.  All of her family was back east so there was no one to help her.  There was no one to give her emotional or financial support when she needed it.  She didn’t say it because she’s such a tough cookie but she must have been scared.  She probably had to dig down deep inside of her herself to find the strength to leave, not knowing what would happen next.  I respect that kind of moxie.  I respect it because I know exactly what it takes…because I, too, have had to find that strength.

Amanda found a job with the State and over the past two years, she has done her best to put herself in a better place.  A lot of the time she has been exhausted from work, from her children, from just trying to keep her head above water as a single mom.  But in September, she began to feel a little more stable.  She began to be open to meeting someone new.  She lost twenty pounds.  She started online dating and most people would think that’s where the story ends.

And then Amanda said this:

“How do you make yourself vulnerable when you’ve already been hurt so badly?”

Of all the things she’s been through, vulnerability is the thing she struggles with the most.  Being tough…or at least making people think you are tough is easy…but how do you purposely make yourself vulnerable knowing you are giving a stranger the power to hurt you? 

I don’t really know the answer but if determination and gumption have anything to do with it, Amanda will find a way.  She’s already happier.  And she’s hopeful that somewhere out there is a person who will love her for the woman she is.  And where there is hope, there is always possibility.