As you may know, I love a good Starting Over story. You know the kind: one minute you’re riding high, the next, you’re flat on your back wondering what hit you. What fears prevent you from letting go of your old life? What if they actually happened? Sahar Irwin tells us about hers, and how she not only faced them, but grew from them. Thank you, Sahar, for this guest post.
What if the worst night of your life was actually a blessing? What if it was the beginning of a new chapter? What if the challenges were actually gifts that enabled you to learn and grow from an experience? What if sometimes, in order to go high in life, you need to hit the bottom hard first?
At two in the morning, I find myself sitting in my car in front of the police station with my 3-year-old son in the back seat, asleep. I am sitting in front of a closed police station in a small town in Ohio. A little town where people eat dinner at 5 pm and are in bed, asleep, by 9. No resemblance to how people did things in my home country of Iran. I am scared, almost shaking. Tonight was like a horrible movie. I can never go back home anymore. Tonight, I had to escape my home for my safety, for the safety of my son, even for the safety of his dad. When I last looked at his eyes, I realized that my son’s father did not look like the person I had married. He was a stranger to me. I had to leave the beautiful house I’d decorated the year before, down to the last corner. My dream home! I had to call 911. I had to ask them to come and escort me from my house to a safe place, since I had no family or close friends in that town. Like a nightmare, everything happened quickly. I just grabbed my purse. I had no time to put socks or shoes on my son’s feet. Koroush, my son, and I needed to escape because I wasn’t feeling safe there anymore. Never in my wildest dream would I have imagined fleeing my house in the middle of the night.
I followed the police car to their station, where they just left me. How on earth could they assume that I would be okay this late with a 3-year-old in my car? I used to believe that the police in this country cared about people, but that belief was shaken tonight.
It is 2 am and I can’t see anyone inside the station. The night is so dark and so cold. The police told me to go to the women’s shelter, but I don’t know how to get there. I don’t have their address. I had visited the shelter only once, the week before, in order to file some documents, but I don’t remember where it is. I am directionally challenged most of the time, and I’m afraid to attempt the drive for fear of getting lost.
I call the only person that I know for help. The only guy that I think I can count on. No answer on his cell phone. I call him, time and time again, for at least 30 minutes, with no response. I cannot hold back my tears, and I am crying hard. I feel betrayed. I feel heartbroken. I had a crush on the guy, and he promised to help me with my problems. I feel that I have been “used” emotionally and now, when I am in need of help, this person could care less. I feel like an utter fool for believing and trusting him. My son is asleep in his car seat. I feel desperate. I feel scared, frustrated, betrayed. I never thought in a million years I would be out in the streets with nobody to go to, no house to spend the night at. You cannot imagine the sick feeling that overcomes you when you realize that you belong nowhere, to no one, anymore. You are all by yourself, in a foreign country, with a young child to take care of.
I call back 911 and ask them for help. They show up shortly and give me the right address. I drive to my hotel for the night, the Women’s Shelter of Warren Ohio. I am happy to finally find the place. Better than going back home or sleeping in the car on the street, I tell myself.
The shelter is not in a good part of town, nothing like my neighborhood, but I have no other choice. When I arrive, I am holding my son in my arms. He is asleep. A drowsy woman lets us in. The receptionist’s hair is all messed up. Does she even care how she looks? For heaven’s sake, it looks like she has not combed her hair for ages. She looks very different than the receptionist in my real estate office where I work. Her sense of fashion is horrible. Where the hell am I? This place looks so crude. Needless to say, it is nothing like than the Embassy Suites in Maui, Hawaii, where I got married! She is asking me lots of questions. Why am I here? What happened? The questions come at me. There is no reaction or feeling in her face or voice. She has done this many times before, probably in the middle of the night. But, for me, it is the first time. It is my nightmare.
I am told that I can only stay at the shelter for few nights, until I find a place. I am hearing the rules of this prison. It is a prison of choice, but no less a prison to me, for the fear of what lays outside. I don’t like rules. I don’t like restrictions. Who the hell are these people to tell me what to do? Now, here I am, a guest of this shelter, and every evening I must be back before dark. I cannot call outside unless it is a local number. I have no computer with me. Only my cell phone, and that is not even fully charged. I have no comb, no shampoo, not even the right kind of shoes. I feel homeless, messy. I look at the bathroom and the shower, which are unappealing. I would prefer to stay dirty than to take a shower here.
What happened to that woman who would buy “girly” stuff in Nordstrom’s every weekend? I am a fugitive. I have no idea what will happen to me tomorrow. I cannot plan my life anymore. My bucket lists are going down the drain. My travel plans, the dresses I want to buy, and restaurants I want to eat at, dissolve. Now I have to live life hour by hour. What will happen to my real estate career? What happened to my marriage? What should I tell my friends and family? That I moved to U.S. so I could live in a women’s shelter?
I finally go to my assigned room. I hear some girl in the hallway talking desperately and crying. I hear another new guest arrive, a lady with 3 kids all under age of 5. I was told that I might have a roommate later; that I should watch out for my valuable belongings. I am going to sleep tonight with my wallet under my pillow. I am so scared. I lay on the bed holding my son in my arms. He is finally waking up. Like me, he is confused and scared, and I think his little mind is sensing that something is clearly not right. We hold each other tight and cry hard together. We are alone in this strange place but at least we are together and have each other. There are no vaulted ceilings or granite counter tops here. No fancy Jacuzzi, or nice walk-in closet, or cozy fireplace. This is a shelter, a place to escape and hide from life when you have nowhere else to go, your last hope.
I need to talk to somebody outside of this place. I need to let my family back in Iran and Canada know where I am. When I call, my parents sound very supportive. They tell me everything will be okay, that tough times are temporary. But they are so far away, on another continent. How can they assure me of safety? I feel so ashamed to tell my parents that it looks like I made a big mistake.
I meet a Chinese girl from the next room over in the morning. She looks like she is having a blast here.
She is fixing her hair and playing music. Seriously? Is she thinking she is in a 5-star hotel? We chat. She tells me how her husband was abusing her physically, and now she is here with no money. She shows me the kitchen. I am starving. My picky eater son is crying. He wants his special breakfast at home. Here we are in this kitchen. It is same size as my walk-in closet. I am hunt for food. My new friend informs me that everything in the refrigerator is old. If I eat anything, I take the risk of food poisoning. Seriously? We have to wait until somebody decides we need food!
My son, Kourosh, has no shoes. They send us to the basement of the building to look at the donation clothes and find items for ourselves. I prefer to stay in my own dirty clothes than try on their stuff. There are no Nordstrom’s shoes here for my son. I find a pair of goofy looking slippers for him. I think they are some poor version of the Sesame Street characters.
I feel embarrassed knowing that I will have to go to my lawyer office with these funny blue shoes on my son’s feet. My lawyer will see what a train wreck I am. This is utterly depressing.
Later that morning, when I meet with the lawyer, I am educated on my rights. After, I head to McDonalds. What a comforting concept to have food that won’t poison you, at least short term! I remember that I need to call the police so they can escort me back to my house, where I can pack a few outfits for the coming nights at the shelter.
At the house, I see an envelope with money from my son’s dad with a note saying that he is sorry, and would I consider coming back home? It makes my heart even sadder.
I head to the real estate office to let my broker know that he will need to take over my contracts and listings, because I don’t know anymore where I am headed. I will miss all my fellow realtors. I will miss my Tuesday morning meetings at the office.
Back at the shelter, I am instructed to speak with a counselor. I talk to a nice African American lady whose words show she cares. She reminds me of my rights and duties living in the shelter. We need to clean the floors, bathrooms, kitchen, and cook. I used to have a maid back at home. I never had to cook. Maybe I could make a deal with my Chinese friend. I could go to the basement and organize the donation clothing, and she could cook the meat in that small, nasty kitchen. After all, I am a vegetarian. I don’t know what to do with slippery red pieces of raw meat.
I need to hatch an escape plan. The counselor is introducing me to food stamps, something that I have never heard of before. She is telling me about applying for a job. Maybe I need to go back to school, study math and teach math in schools since I was a math major in Iran, she says. This lady doesn’t understand that I want to be a business owner, that I want to be my own boss. I look at her as if she is speaking another language. She tells me, “Sahar, times have changed. I understand that in your previous life you had no need for government help, but now you will need it for a while. Sometimes in life we need to hit the bottom hard before we go up.” I do not look at the instructions for government food stamps and assistance. I ignore the counselor. After awhile, I look her in the eyes and I say, in a loud voice, “Yes, sometimes in order to go up, we have to hit the bottom hard first. This is my bottom. From now on, the only way is up!”
I make my way to the kitchen. My Chinese friend is preparing a feast with the new groceries somebody brought to the shelter. She is cooking some spicy Chinese food. It smells good, but I won’t accept her offering. I want comfort food. I want to fix an omelet for myself tonight. I feel like I am making progress in this shelter. I now have a friend, who can hardly speak English, a small frying pan, and an omelet for dinner. The omelet tastes so very delicious. Cooking it, then enjoying it, is my first step to getting my life back on track. I hit the bottom hard the night before, now the only way is up! I have no idea how I will get out of this shelter yet, where I will go, or whom I will ask for help, I only know one thing, and one thing only: I am not going to live the rest of my life in this shelter with these girls. They have no vision. They have no escape plan to escape. They only want to extend their stay. I, however, am out of here.
I start by looking for 1 or 2-bedroom apartments in the newspapers. I don’t know, yet, how everything will come together. I don’t even know how I will pay the rent. I want to attend a real estate seminar this summer. I want to learn how to brand and market myself. I want to shop at Nordstrom’s again. I want to sleep in my own bed again. I don’t want to live on food stamps. My story will be very different than that of these girls. That is the promise I make to myself there in that women’s shelter. I hit the bottom so hard, and now the only way is up!
And, in those desperate moments, when everything looks and feels impossible, when you have no shoes to put on your son’s feet, when you have no food to eat, no place to spend the night, are you going to listen to the voice of doubt, fear, anger, frustration? Or are you going to listen to the voice of faith, grace, and determination? Whose voice will run the show?
Sometimes our crises allow us to help others. I could not have coached the suicidal, the depressed, or even successful business owners and a stay-at-home moms, people from all walks of life, from all over the globe, the way I do today, creating massive results, had I not experienced that dark moment in my life.
Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation…..we must always be prepared for endless waves of transformation.—Elizabeth Gilbert, from Eat, Pray, Love
Sahar Irwin is a Tony Robbin’s trained transition coach and expert. She helps her clients through major life transitions, and to deal with their emotional challenges in a powerful and resourceful way. Her clients have experienced massive results and breakthroughs in the shortest time possible, much to Sahar’s joy. If you’d like to read more about Sahar, and her incredible journey, visit her at http://www.coachsahar.com
