Beth Reid
Beth Reid

Beth R.

When times get tough, pick your head up, ditch the victim mentality and take control of your surroundings.

To be a strong woman, is to be an overcomer.

In my life, I have overcome quite a bit: Growing up with an alcoholic parent, combating a harmful religious organization, an eating disorder, and an abusive (ex) husband, to name a few. When I left my ex, I was four months pregnant and homeless until my daughter was four months old.

I will never forget the day my daughter and I moved into our first apartment together, and I opened the box to her crib. I took out all of the pieces, one by one and sorted them into sections. I had never assembled a piece of furniture in my life and all I had was a tiny screwdriver left in the cabinet from the former tenant. I was overwhelmed. It took me several hours, but I followed the directions step by step, and the accomplished feeling I had as I drove in the final screw was a memorable experience.

For the first time in my life, I needed to be strong, not just for myself, but for someone else. Being a single parent is tough; Being an only parent is near impossible. My daughter’s father still has yet to meet our child and it has been seven years since her birth. Though heartbreaking, it is also a blessing. There are days when I would put my daughter down for a nap and I would scream and cry into my couch cushions from the stress of only parenthood.

I was exhausted all of the time. I struggled to pay my rent. I struggled to buy food. I couldn’t breastfeed, so most of my money went to formula after rent and utilities. There were many weeks where all you could find in my fridge was a carton of almond milk and a couple mangos. I remember once, I called up my friend and asked her if she could grab a bunch of canned and dried food from the local church charity pantry for me because I was too embarrassed to do it myself. She showed up with four bags of groceries for me. The Beatles were on to something when they sang “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

My friends helped me greatly through the early years with my daughter, which brings me to my next point: Sometimes, being a strong woman means allowing others to help you. When times get tough, pick your head up, ditch the victim mentality and take control of your surroundings. If everything seems broken, lay it all out like the pieces of my daughter’s crib and mend it back together, one step at a time, even if it takes a whole day, a whole month, or even a whole year.

Take life in strides, one minute at a time. If a minute seems too overwhelming, take it one second at a time.

Being strong means taking deep breaths and knowing when to pause, rest, rejuvenate, scream into a couch cushion, and conquer, then: repeat.