An excerpt from My Letter to Pain by Christina Barrow

Chapter 4: Humbling Experience - Loving Differently

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Eventually, I gave birth to my son via C-section. His father was there for the delivery. Our son didn’t make anything better between us; the situation was actually getting worse. House-wise, I was in between my family and his family for a while, even after the baby. 

So here I was, homeless, in a car with my son and his father. We fussed so much, on the side of the highway, in the church parking lot, in the morning, in the mid-day, and at night. It was just ridiculous. I was blaming my son’s father for everything, especially us being homeless. We were yelling, screaming, and it was all in front of our son.

Eventually, I just stopped talking to my son’s father. I took the advice my mama gave me when I was young: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say nothing at all.” And I didn’t say anything else, just started literally staring at him and wondering how someone can argue by them self.

During the silent treatments, I tried my best to stay in church and find a job. Meanwhile, my best friend allowed me to stay with her to get on my feet after my C-section. And soon after I healed, I got a job at a call center, something where I could sit down and work. And I was doing good with getting myself together. And of course, my son’s father came back “trying to make the family work”.  And yes, I moved like 30 minutes away from my family to stay with him and give our “family” a chance.

You can imagine how that turned out. The disrespect, the arguing, the toxic situation eventually landed me in jail. Yes, you read correctly, jail. And it was on a holiday. Let me tell you what happened. 

On Valentine’s Day of 2017, I had a plan already together. That plan was to leave my son’s father after he went to work. But that never happened because we got into a physical altercation, and I was just sick and tired of it all. I can’t tell you what happened after that because I blanked out and to this day, I could not tell you what I did. But I know where I ended up: in jail for a weekend for assault.

While I was in jail, I realized this was my absolute lowest. I was locked up, walking in a chain gang with real-life criminals who were on trial for some real-life crimes. And I can honestly say that I felt so free, it was like I was in a Paul and Silas situation. I was waiting for the prison doors to open to start a new life.***

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