The Art of Romanticizing Survival

I was taught to romanticize from a very young age.

No, not in the way Jane Austen might have approved of… with secret letters and longing glances… but in the way that a child must, when everything hurts and nothing fits and love comes wrapped in caution and warning bells... caveats.

I romanticized because reality was often brutal, and beauty, when imagined, could sometimes hold back the tide.

When I went from home to home like a weathered library book… almost well-read but rarely kept… I told myself I was on an adventure. A grand one. The kind they write fairytales about, if fairytales were narrated by social workers with overstuffed binders and polite exhaustion in their eyes. I wasn’t being abandoned, I told myself. I was being passed along, like a sacred secret. A nomad, of necessity, yes… but still a nomad. That sounded brave. That sounded strong.

I didn’t have a dog as a kid or teenager, I longed for one, my very own and I couldn’t, but I lived near some. At many homes I lived... Furry, profound symbols of joy with noses smudging chain-link fences and tails wagging in welcome. They were not mine to name, not mine to sometimes feed, walk or curl beside, but I adored them as if I could absorb their affection from a respectful distance. Proximity was enough. I’d gush with adoration, and they’d bark, and for a moment, I was part of something warm. That moment was mine, and I clung to it. The loneliness wasn’t quite dead but it was in hibernation.

Fast food restaurants as a 7 year old, became temples of bright color and comfort. The plastic booths, the fluorescent light humming above me like a lullaby, the sticky floors underfoot telling tales of rushed meals and birthday parties. I didn’t know, then, that some kids ate at places with tablecloths. I thought the golden arches were golden for a reason. I thought the paper crowns and tiny toys were relics of divine celebration. Maybe they were. Maybe they still are.

And the clothes… the few I had at such young ages… the lack there-of did not mark me with shame, but with simplicity. While others wore new fabrics still whispering department store air, I wore mine as exactly what they were... mere coverings of my body. No desire yet for fashion design. I had no distractions, only presence. The world, it seemed, judged my stained outfits and repeated t-shirts. I, on the other hand, judged the world for its cluttered closets and crowded minds. Less was not just more… it was noble.

When authority figures controlled the music, I listened. I had no choice. The melodies were not mine, but I made them mine. I dissected them, line by line, measure by measure. I listened for the sorrow beneath the strings, the ache behind the beat. In that, I discovered how to hear. Really hear. Find the emotions. I cherished looking for emotions as I have always felt mine so strongly. I never grew too picky with music after that (same with food). I could find God in static, joy in static, and salvation in static. You learn not to be picky when you’ve learned to survive on scraps.

Later as an adult in my 20s, I married a man. I love him fiercely. And he, with his past and his bruised hopes, came with four children. Children who didn’t call me “mom.” Children who probably never will. But I love them too, fiercely and messily. And when they kept their distance, when they protected their loyalty to a mother who puts no deep effort into their relationships and only shallow thought and action, I romanticized the future. I pictured a child… ours, adopted, a whole life ahead of them… curling up in my lap, the word “mama” spilling from their lips like a blessing. I romanticized what hadn’t happened yet, because the present required too much patience. Love, after all, isn’t always a two-way street. Sometimes it’s a long, one-lane road with potholes and echoes. Still, I drove it daily.

I’ve been one of the family punching bags. The favored target of angry uncles, manipulative grandmothers, and fathers who flinched at their own reflection. I’ve watched my siblings take their hits too, watched helplessness carve its way into their posture. I romanticized the rescue, the moment the fists stopped, the switch was thrown, the cycle broken. I told myself it would come. I was right… it did. And not in the way or timing we desperately and impatiently hoped. We became adults. We left. Some even dispersed their separate ways together. But healing is not punctual, and peace doesn’t arrive on schedule. The damage remains. Our bodies, still watchful. Our nerves, still threaded with alarms. But survival came, and with it, the quiet. And the quiet, though sometimes eerie, is sacred.

I was blamed once, wrongly, by a teacher. I was 9 or 10. Innocent. Alone. I told myself I was brilliant, misunderstood, destined for greatness. I had to believe it. I was the only voice cheering me on. No chorus, just a whisper inside my own head. As I aged, that whisper softened, drowned out by doubt and disappointment, but I’ve never forgotten her. That brave little voice. Sharp. Certain. She saved me, more times than I can count.

When my husband’s family or some of my own, refuses to step foot in our home due to where it is and what it looks like… I romanticized the birds. Yes, the birds. The ones who gather all day outside our front door, pecking at the seed I put out each morning like clockwork. They graciously didn’t care that my curtains didn’t match and were in-fact just sheets. They didn’t scoff at my chipped dishes or question my decor choices. They sang. And that singing was enough. Teddy, my dog, sunbathes in the backyard like royalty. Soaking up the biggest glimmer of all, the sun. The sunlight pours through the windows at specific hours with such precision, such reverence, that it feels like an apology from the universe itself. Dust dances just like incense does, in the beams, and I stand still in those moments, breathing it in like something holy. This is my home. It’s not perfect. But it’s mine. And that, my friends, is the poetry of my life.

I romanticized everything not because I was delusional, but because I was desperate. Desperate to believe there was more to life than what I was handed. And I was right. There was. There is. You don’t survive what I survived without becoming an alchemist of the soul. I turned scarcity into sacredness, grief into gospel, ache into art.

I’ve mastered the art of pretending things are fine until they are. And sometimes, they never quite get there… but my imagination has always done the heavy lifting. I never have to "fake it to make it", I simply just look for what beauty is there, no matter how small... I’ve built cathedrals and poetic reasons out of dust, books, a sleeping husband, kind and harmless box elder bugs in the trees, well used home decor given by the woman I call mom, and fast food wrappers in the wind downtown. I’ve found solace in used clothes and secondhand dreams. I’ve found hope in dogs I didn’t own, children who didn’t call me mother, and sunbeams through worn out and slightly broken windows. I have loved loudly in spaces where love was only ever whispered.

And no, I don’t regret romanticizing it all. Because sometimes, the only way to survive is to believe there’s magic in the mundane. That beauty is buried under the ordinary, ugly or often repetitive and boring. That love hides in the corner, waiting patiently for you to stop crying long enough to notice it.

I’ve lived a life that many would overlook, discard, or pity. But I’ve etched poetry into the bones of every moment. I’ve looked devastation in the face and dared to say, “I can make you beautiful.”

Because I did.

Because I do.

Every single day.

When someone says, “You’re so strong,” I don’t roll my eyes anymore. I simply nod. Awkwardly, yes... but not because I’ve finally bought into the compliment, but because I’ve realized it’s true. Not in the superhero way. But in the quiet, unglamorous, get-up-anyway way. The make-breakfast-even-when-you’re-crying way. The show-up-for-therapy way. The keep-feeding-the-birds way.

That kind of strength and energy I have doesn’t come from stoicism. It comes from romanticism. From choosing to see something radiant in the ruins. From crafting lullabies out of silence. From dancing with ghosts in the hallway and calling it healing. It took me years to get it stable enough for me to not take things so personally and deliberately enjoy the absolute joys no matter how small. To get where I am. And it’s only getting better, I can feel it.

I am not a victim. I’m not even just a survivor. I’m a damn artist. I paint with pain, write with ruin, decorate with dust and defiance. And I love. God, do I love. I love children who don’t love me back (yet). I love a house not many see as beautiful. I love a life most would call tragic. But it’s mine. And I’ve made it sing.

So here’s to the children who learned to comfort themselves.

To the ones who romanticized everything because it was the only way to stay soft.

To the dreamers in hand-me-downs, the poets of pain, the warriors of warmth.

To the mothers without complete or solid titles.

To the artists who don’t sell their work but live inside it.

To the homes that smell like dog fur and forgiveness.

To the teachers who got it wrong and the voices that got quieter but never disappeared.

To you, and to me.

We made it beautiful.

Because no one else was going to.

And generations from now… when someone holds these words in trembling hands,

When they see themselves in my dust-covered sunbeam or my too-tight t-shirt or my golden-arched salvation…

They will know:

They are not alone. And they never were.

I have long been a curator of glimmers.

Not because life handed them to me wrapped in silk and song, but because I learned to spot them in the dust, in the cracks, in the quiet. I learned to see the shimmer in the shattered, the poetry in the pause, the sacred in the small. I learned to stop and smell the roses… yes, even when the roses were plastic, wilted, or growing wild through concrete.

But let’s be honest: most people don’t.

Most people rush past the roses, the glimmers, the grace. They chase the next thing, the next task, the next checkbox on the never-ending list of “shoulds.” They live in a world that worships speed and productivity, where slowing down is seen as laziness, and savoring is a luxury few can afford.

Yet, in our haste, we miss the very things that make life worth living.

We miss the way the morning light filters through the curtains, casting golden patterns on the floor. We miss the sound of a child’s laughter, the warmth of a dog’s fur... the comfort of a shared silence. We miss the glimmers.

Glimmers are those micro-moments that spark joy, calm, and connection. They are the opposite of triggers, those sudden jolts that send us spiraling into anxiety or fear. Glimmers, instead, activate our parasympathetic nervous system, inviting us into a state of rest and safety. They are the body’s way of saying, “Here, now, this is good.”

And yet, we overlook them.

We overlook them because we’re too busy, too distracted, too numbed by the noise of modern life. We overlook them because we’ve been taught to value the big, the bold, the dramatic. We overlook them because we’ve forgotten how to be present.

To me, though I forget often too, those glimmers are bold and dramatic if we let them be. In its natural state.

But presence is where healing begins.

Presence is where we find the strength to face our pain, the courage to embrace our stories, the grace to forgive ourselves and others. Presence is where we discover that survival is not just about enduring, but about finding beauty in the brokenness.

When I was a child, I learned to romanticize my survival. I turned my hardships into adventures, my losses into lessons, my scars into stories. I did this not to escape reality, but to reclaim it. To find meaning in the madness, light in the darkness, hope in the despair.

And now, I invite you to do the same.

I invite you to slow down, to breathe, to notice. I invite you to seek out the glimmers… the way the wind rustles the leaves, the way your favorite song makes you feel, the way a stranger’s smile can brighten your day or the way the leaves shake from gusts of wind. I invite you to stop and smell the roses, not as a cliché, but as a radical act of self-care.

Because in a world that constantly demands more, choosing to savor the moment is revolutionary... It’s revolutionary to prioritize your well-being over your to-do list. It’s revolutionary to find joy in the mundane. It’s revolutionary to believe that you are worthy of love, peace, and happiness, not someday, but now.

So, let us be revolutionaries.

Let us be the ones who pause, who notice, who feel. Let us be the ones who find beauty in the ordinary, who create art from our pain, who turn survival into a masterpiece. Let us be the ones who teach our children to value presence over perfection, connection over competition, love over fear.

Let us be the ones who remember that life is not a race, but a journey.

A journey filled with glimmers, waiting to be seen.

A journey that becomes more beautiful when we slow down, when we open our hearts, when we romanticize our survival.

Because in the end, it’s not about how much we accomplish, but how deeply we live.

And I, for one, choose to live deeply. To feel deeply. To love deeply. To notice the glimmers. To stop and smell the roses.

Every single day.