It is with a very heavy heart that after 23 years together and 17 years of marriage, I have filed for divorce from my Husband. After a very difficult month, we have worked together to amicably resolve the issues involved with our divorce. While we both move forward on this new journey, we will always be loving and dedicated parents to our girls and will continue to co-parent and keep their best interests as our priority. We will not be commenting further at this time and we thank you all in advance for respecting our family’s privacy.
XOXO, Brittany
I have filed for divorce. Words I genuinely thought I would never ever be able to say. Words I have sworn to myself since I was very young that would never be a part of my story. But also words that I can honestly say I put even more than my all into avoiding. It’s been a very long and difficult road for me. A road that started before I even knew what the word blogger and Instagram even meant. A road that all began with being hit head on by the harsh realities of the world. Way back, almost six years ago exactly, I was lost. I was insecure, scared, a brand new mom for the second time and had a will to hold on stronger than any other desire or emotion. I still remember the days that I crawled into a fetal position and cried. Laying in bed at my mom’s house for days with a new baby girl and a five year old thinking that all I wanted to do was make it better. Do whatever I could do to put the pieces back together and change the past as well as the course of the future. Maybe if I was prettier or smarter, maybe if I said yes more or had more fun. Maybe if I was more successful, more beautiful, kinder, easier, skinnier, stronger… it would all be okay.
Those days were a literal gift from God. If you had said those words to me then, I likely would have hated you with fervor. I sulked and cried and pitied myself for quite some time. Like on and off for YEARS. And then one day, God lit a fire under me with the start of a home renovation. Creativity has always spawned happiness and hope within me and the thought of having a space in which to vent my emotions creatively, set my soul on fire. I realized in those days that I am the only one who loves me, cares about me, respects me and can realize and fulfill my own worth to the fullest. And from those days of pouring all of myself into my passion for design, my blog was born. And from my blog, my tribe was born. You guys are MY TRIBE. God walked me through every single day and down every single path these last six years. The more I trusted and put myself out there and stepped outside of my comfort zone, the more He pushed me. Writing a blog and sharing my personal life for hundreds of thousands of people to see was never ever my plan. It was and still is so far outside of my comfort zone but He had a plan and I have seen it fulfilled in ways that I cannot even begin to explain. Yet I feel as though the true fulfillment has only just begun.
Although this post is announcing a really big end in my life, I already feel like it is the freshest and most incredible new beginning. Having trudged my way out of my darkest days quite some years ago, I felt almost immediately after learning of life’s most recent and honestly most shocking hurdle, that I had already walked that dark road. Without even realizing it, I had spent the last six years setting myself up for today. I have never felt stronger, happier, more alive, more free and more ready for true, genuine LOVE. It’s taken me almost a decade but I finally know who I am. I know what I want and what I deserve and what it means to be respected and shown my worth. Walking away may have been the most difficult thing I have ever done but I know that one day my girls will understand. They will be proud and I will put my all into teaching them that they are worthy of the best love in all of the world.
As I head into tomorrow and really even today, I want y’all to know that I am back. I spent some time radio silent and unsure of what to say moving forward but those days are gone. I have decided to take some time to tell my full story but I have a hell of a lot of to say in the meantime. I am proud to be a woman and I am proud to use the voice and platform God has blessed me with to share my journey. I spent YEARS holding everything inside and those days have come to an end. As I posted last night on Instagram stories, I genuinely feel that the world needs less women sharing their hair routines and more women sharing sharing difficult and holy things. But hey, I do love a good makeup and hair routine so ya know… 😉 HOWEVER, I am here and I am ready. To share my new journey… my past, present and future… my ups and downs… my wins and upsets and everything in between. We may not realize it but us as women deserve it all too. We can be moms and we can have passions and we can be happy. Life may throw us some ridiculousness but it’s all about how we handle it and how we move forward that counts. We can all win and we can all do it TOGETHER. LOVE. YOU. ALL.
XOXO, Brittany Hayes
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