I have a confession. I’m a full-fledged, card-carrying 47-year-old Swiftie. I bought the shirts, saw her twice in concert, and would cut off my left leg to go again. You will regularly find me belting out her empowerment and female rage tunes through the suburbs of Ohio. I’ve been in therapy on and off for years, but truthfully sometimes Tay Tay is a better therapist than any traditional professional.
There’s a bonus track on Swift’s Evermore album titled “It’s Time to Go.” I have replayed the song no less than 1500 times, often while sitting alone in my driveway. The words she shares, “or that moment again he’s insisting that friends look at each other like that” pierce my soul and force another tear or two every single time. These words are like the opening to a wound that never healed because I heard them firsthand time and time again.
In March 2013, I knew in my heart that it was time to go. I knew that “friends didn’t look at each other like that.” At that time, I was eight years into a roller coaster-style marriage, tracking up and down wild hills at insane force, fueled by anger, rage, alcohol, drugs, and an affair or two. Yet, I carried on as if our sweet little family of four was something out of a J. Crew catalog. We lived in an ideal Norman Rockwell community, were blessed with two of the most beautiful children, and could walk or bike to the library and local burger shop. Every year at Christmas, I even shamelessly bought matching holiday sweaters. I was drinking the 1950’s traditional family Kool-Aid!
On a fateful March Day in 2013, I took a gut punch call that finally pushed me to recognize maybe it truly was time to go. I had been living in denial for several years, quietly hiding what was happening behind our Norman Rockwell front door. Our neighbor and my friend, the mother of my daughter’s very best friend, was busted swapping clothes and spit with my husband on our living room couch. They were footloose and fancy-free, unaware they would be caught shirtless by her husband, who drove by and saw them in our window, then sheepishly called me to divulge the news. He had been following them for several months, trying to determine if their strange friendship was something more—something that could tear two families apart.
When the call came in, I was sitting in the back seat of my parent’s Volvo SUV, snuggled between my two-year-old son and six-year-old daughter. They were full of life, covered in Cheerios and markers, dreaming of their impending trip to the “happiest place on earth.” We had more than 700 miles to go to reach Orlando, Florida. I bit my tongue, swallowed my tears, stopped shaking with rage, and forced a fake smile on my face every single mile between Ohio and Florida. I was not about to let my fear, sadness, or anger rob them of the Disney magic. The irony of a trip to a magical wonderland during this time is not lost on me. Trust me.
As my “friend’s” husband shared the details and timing, I felt my palms start to sweat and my face flush with a feverish hot flash. It was almost an out-of-body experience, where I was transported to another planet for the rest of the call. For months, I had suspected something was up with the two of them. This wasn’t my first (or last!) affair rodeo. This one was different, though. She was a neighbor and friend who had struggled with addictions, someone I had supported and carried up the steps in times of need. Just two months prior, I aided her on a drunken night by calling her Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Sponsor on her behalf when she couldn’t do it alone. Mere days before the call, we sat in our daughters’ first-grade class together, laughing at their girlish antics. She was the one my husband used to call “crazy.” Our children were best friends, and they spent days at the pool and nights dancing together to Taylor Swift’s “Fearless.” Surely this was a mistake. Yet, her husband was definitive and solemn as a witness. I had no choice but to believe him, buck up, and fake it to the Magic Kingdom. I couldn’t help but wonder - was it time to go yet?
I don’t honestly remember much of that trip to Mickey’s castle. It was a foggy-brained, hot week, and I’m pretty sure the only thing I accomplished was eating spaghetti in bed a couple of times. My mom forced me to eat and sat with me while I cried when the children were in another room. It was their first time meeting Mickey and Minnie, and my son’s adventuresome spirit meant we were going to ride every ride he could reach! Their innocent, ice-cream-filled faces kept me going. It wasn’t their fault our J.Crew family was falling apart back home, and I was damned and determined to show them a great time despite the pit in my stomach.
As we drove back to Ohio at the end of that spring break week in 2013, I knew what was ahead of me. It’s like knowing you are coming home to a robber who has viciously invaded your space and stolen your soul; the anxiety fills your chest, yet you know you must fight back. I don’t recall even speaking to my husband the entire week we were in Florida. He was living his own life back home while I was going through the family motions at Disney. Our two worlds, our values, and our hearts were not just on different pages that week. They were on different planets.
It wasn’t until two months later, on Mother’s Day, that I truly accepted it was time to go. I’m stubborn, and sometimes it seems like it takes a tractor-trailer truck to run over me before I give up on those I love and support—even when they don’t love me in return. By this point in our journey, my husband was frequently busted canoodling late at night with other women at bars, coming home drunk, or sleeping in the basement. I no longer believed he and our “friend and neighbor” were just friends. Despite our frequent conversations, where he claimed he was “helping her with projects,” I knew the truth, and I earnestly believe the truth will set you free. When I finally accepted the truth for what it was, I felt a sense of relief. A calming wave rushed over me on Mother's Day, also my birthday weekend, and I reached deep within the pit of my heart and my stomach to tell him it was finally going to be over.
By the summer of 2013, my husband and I were separated and “nesting” in our suburban home, taking turns staying with the kids like birds flying in and out of a shared nest. One night, as I was giving my sweet seven-year-old daughter a warm bath, she looked up at me with those big brown heart-shaped eyes and said, “Mommy, why is Miss X sleeping in Daddy’s bed with him?” Mic drop.
If that doesn’t tell me it’s time to go, what will? How do you look into your daughter’s sweet, unknowing doe-eyes, and tell her that Daddy was replacing her mom with her best friend’s mom? How do you explain to a child that there is nothing “normal” about this experience, but that her confusion and honest questions are valid?
While hearing that question from my daughter broke my heart, it also made me realize I was right. It was time to go. Really, truly time to go now. We expedited the divorce proceedings, and I waded through hours of therapy attempting to regain enough composure to be a mom, sister, daughter, friend, and professional. This was no easy task. By day I was faking it, and by night I was a puddle of tears, lost and looking up at the ceiling wondering how I got to this point. Thankfully, I had an incredibly supportive set of friends and family who took me in and offered me guest beds, food, wine, and a shoulder or two to cry on when I needed it.
Fast forward 11 years, and my sweet girl recently graduated high school. My ex-husband and I aren’t exactly better friends. I genuinely went through hell these last ten years, wading in and out of court, dealing with parenting coordinators, investigations, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. His relationship with our “friend and neighbor” ended several years later and he’s since moved on to greener pastures. Our daughter is thriving, healthy, and happy and is attending college to study art therapy.
That best friend of hers? Well, just recently, during my daughter’s graduation party, we shared a moment. It was an honest heartfelt conversation of understanding, forgiveness for our family trials, support, and love for each other after all we have collectively survived. She looked at me like she was terrified to share what had been on her mind for so, so long. There were tears, but there was also laughter and a long hug between the three of us. It was a conversation 10 years in the making. Now, it was no longer time to go. Now, it was time to let go. It was time to forgive.
Later in her song, “It’s Time To Go,” Swift says:
“Sometimes, givin’ up is the strong thing
Sometimes, to run is the brave thing
Sometimes, walkin’ out is the one thing
That will find you the right thing”
Looking back on the spring of 2013, I know now that letting go was the strong thing. It was a brave thing. Sure, it took me a while and a literal beat down to finally accept my reality. There’s so much more to the story of our little suburban family, and now that time has passed, I recognize the lessons learned. I regularly reflect on the great line that reminds us to “accept the things we cannot change and change the things we can.” I’m so glad I accepted reality and made the change.
Since becoming a single mom, I have found the love I need in my family, my amazing children, supportive friends, hot yoga, and a little wine. I’ve completed three mission trips and even traveled across the world to work at a girls' retreat in India. For a while, I started a single mom’s club, joined a book club, and volunteered in various capacities across my community. I sleep better now, and my relationships with those who truly care are stronger than they ever could have been if I had stayed in a “faux family marriage.” My heart was broken back then, and even visiting the happiest place on earth couldn’t repair it. Resilience is a muscle built the hard way, but acceptance and letting go is the first step to true freedom. Today, I know “walkin’ out” led me to the right thing.
Don’t time and Taylor Swift truly heal all wounds? I like to think so.
Susanna Ross Clyde (Max) is an aspiring writer with southern roots, a love of sweet tea, and a dash of sass inherited from her late grandmother. She's been telling stories since childhood. An experienced improvisation actor, she was a regular feature writer for Venue Magazine in Cincinnati, Ohio. She dabbles in writing as a form of therapy, sharing her musings on her personal blog, Tacos and Truth Bombs. When she’s not working hard to provide for her two amazing children, you’ll find her sweating it out in a hot yoga class or laughing with great female friends over a glass of wine! Susanna resides in Cincinnati with her two children, Elizabeth and Andrew, and their rescue dog, Jersey.
Written by Susanna Ross Clyde (Max)
