This is the big one double zero post for me at FWW, so hang in there a while I get through the mushy-mush.

Thanks for being on this journey with me and letting me ride along on all of yours. Thanks for the solace and thanks for telling stories that re-arrange how I understand myself and the world.

I read back through 99 posts, and then through all the journal entries I blogged privately the year before, trying to understand what happened. I'm still not sure, but I want to hold every step and even more I want to hold the moments I was on my belly crawling through it.

Because it's true what they say: The only way out is through.

Two years ago, the night I drank Cosmos with my girlfriends until we were drunk and spilling was the same day I listened to this Michael Franti song on repeat for hours: "Never Too Late." He sang "don't fear your best friends" and "don't fear to walk slow"; "don't fear your teachers" and "don't fear you own self." I was terrified.

I told my friends, "I can't."

I said, "I work nights four days a week, sometimes five and it's part time and the pay is crap."

"I have no money, no car, no way to pay first, last, and security."

I said, "I will, soon, but not now, because how?"

They all knew the details in too much detail already and they said, "We will stock your cupboards full, girl. Nobody is going to let your babies starve."

"Maybe in a few months," I said, "If I get this job I'm waiting to hear back on." Everything was on that job. It would double my income, give me a more flexible schedule. If I got that job, I could leave. That's how.

Except they took a former intern instead of me.

With that only hope swept right out from under me, my decision was made. Two days later I told my girlfriends I was leaving and the next day I told my husband. I stopped freaking out about all the impossible barriers and one by one found solutions.

You reach a point in any unhappy situation when self-preservation rises up and kicks the crap out all the fears that keep you in it. At least I did.

There were piles of collections notices. And I'm still here.

Times I didn't sleep for days. And I'm still here.

Welfare. And I'm still here.

One bedroom apartment with two kids for two years. And I'm still here.

I am still here.

I don't think I'd be able to say that if I had stayed.