Not a Phoenix

I’m not a phoenix. Phoenixes are graceful. I’m a woman in pyjamas eating toast over the sink at 1am having just submitted an invoice that might cover the electric bill. That’s not mythology. That’s Tuesday.

People love the phoenix thing. They love the rising. The fire. The transformation. They want you to be grateful for the burning because look what emerged from the ashes. Look how strong you are. Look how far you’ve come.

I’ve come from the bedroom to the kitchen. Some days that’s as far as I get. And the distance between those two rooms is further than anyone who hasn’t walked it will ever understand.

I’m not grateful for what happened. I didn’t learn from abuse. I didn’t grow from coercive control. I didn’t discover my inner strength through financial deprivation and emotional erasure. What I discovered is that I could survive it. And survival is not the same as growth and people who confuse the two have never had to survive anything.

The rebuilding is ugly. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again because the pretty version keeps getting airtime and the ugly version doesn’t.

The ugly version is applying for Universal Credit with mascara on your cheeks. It’s sitting in a Jobcentre being told to apply for Aldi. It’s a work capability assessment where a stranger with a clipboard asks you to quantify your worst day. It’s the school gate. It’s the shower. It’s the 3am. It’s the Thermomix at midnight and the client emails at 1am and the bills that don’t care about your trauma timeline.

I didn’t rise from ashes. I crawled from rubble. Slowly. Covered in dust. With two children on my back and a laptop under my arm and a determination that had nothing to do with inspiration and everything to do with having no other option.

No other option is not a phoenix. It’s a woman who gets up because the alternative is staying down and staying down isn’t available when people depend on you.

So I get up. Every morning. Not because I’ve been reborn. Because the alarm goes off and the kids need breakfast and the inbox has emails and life does not pause for your metamorphosis.

Not a phoenix.

Just a woman. Getting up. Again.

That’s the whole story. And it’s enough.