A few years ago, in the darkest time of my life, I wrote my suicide note. I wanted everyone in my life to know my sadness was nobody else’s fault but my own. I wrote my sincerest apologies to my family, my friends, my husband and my son. I decided to publish it. My plan was always to publish & then… go. I was never meant to see any of those book sales. I wasn’t meant to know how anybody felt about it. Maybe my book isn’t a New York Times best seller, just yet, but I believe that The Penthouse I Promised You helped more than just me. The response was incredible. So many people reached out to tell me how seen they felt but, I was never supposed to know all that. I was never supposed to be telling you a story of my life three years after the fact. I brought shame to light in a way that many people needed to find peace in. I just wasn’t supposed to be here to see any of it.
I wrote this book in hopes that I would remove the shame of being suicidal. I wanted everyone who’s ever felt depressed or had those dark thoughts to know they are not crazy, and they are not alone. Depression is such a taboo subject. For a long time growing up, depression wasn’t even real. You would tell your parents you felt sad and they would say… you’re not. So, you had to just put it to the side and move along with life. The problem with throwing everything inside the closet and closing the door is that one day the closet will be too full and that door will not close anymore and when the door doesn’t close, it is inevitable that everything will fall out. i am not talking about a closet… Postpartum depression was not the beginning of my sadness. It was the moment I started to notice the closet door. I figured that since I was already sad, I might as well unpack everything else I had been carrying. Alot of bad things happened to me. Alot of good things happened to me. I became so attached to my suffering that I started treating joy like it was temporary and pain was my actual personality.
I spent the last 6 years in a lot of pain. The kind of pain that consumes all of you and makes you unrecognizable. I had no idea who the girl was that looked back at me. If you knew me before my son, you only know me as the party girl full of life. This girl was different, she was ugly, she was fat, she was messy, she was sad all the time, I really did not like her. She was a stranger that I let in & she took over my life. She was in charge now. I didn’t want to be here if I had to be here with her. I spent those years hurting so much. The penthouse was never coming and the suicide just felt more necessary as time went by. I kept trying to bring back someone who did not exist anymore. The me before Chris. I didn’t realize that I was a mother now and even though I didn’t have to make that my entire personality, it was now one of the board members. I had to grieve. I had to grieve the Rossy who was in the club all the time. I had to grieve the me who was skinny. I had to grieve young wild and free. For so long I avoided that grief because it meant accepting I would never be the old me and the depression was building an entirely new personality that I didn’t like. (& neither did anybody else in my life).
It’s hard you know. Becoming a mom. Like, motherhood isn’t hard but the period where you see the + to when your body is yours again… That right there… That’s the part I kept refusing to accept. The part that said once you saw that positive test, the old you HAD to die. She doesn’t die gradually. She’s gone as soon as you know you’re pregnant. I think being a mom is the closest thing to being God. You create a life. Someone has eyeballs, because I gave it my womb to grow in. I love being Christopher’s mom. He has shown me life again but in those first few years I didn’t want to accept it. I thought that if it wasn’t exactly who I used to be, I would never not be sad again. Depressed mom who blogs in 3XL t-shirts. That was the new me. I neglected my relationship in hopes that I pushed him far enough to get away from the monster. He didn’t leave. He stayed front row even when the scenes got scary. He never looked away. At my absolute lowest, I kept ignoring my blessings. I had the 2 best boys in the whole world taking care of me, never expecting the old me to come back but making sure the new me didn’t do too much damage.
I gave up almost all hope, almost. My son was 5 years old when I realized I would not ever make it through if I didn’t get right. “You have to let her go Rossy”. My obsession with the old me was getting weird. It was like the world is falling apart around you and you cannot stop for a second and look. One of those, “WTF are you doing right now,” moments. My son never knew a happy mom. He would see me dancing but he also saw the tears I tried so hard to fight back while we grooved because I knew it was fake. So back to grief. I had to grieve that girl. I just could not do that to my family but especially myself. Honestly, being depressed got boring. It was the same thing every day. Wake up, cry. Go to work, cry. Come home, cry. Go to bed, cry. That was just such an excessive amount of crying for someone who didn’t even truly fully understand why she was even crying. I got married in May 2024. I was still depressed and I was still fat. Something woke up in me that rainy Wednesday at 3:30pm. After we said “I do” there was a storm so bad driving home that the streets were flooded and the traffic lights went out. That was it. That was the storm, that was the closet door. I couldn’t fight her anymore, not because I let her win but because it was now time to create someone bigger, and better to whoop her ass!
I had a game plan. Stop being sad. Get skinny. Get cool. Love yourself. Let her GO! So I finally grieved her. I said bye, told her I loved her, let her know that some of the cool parts of her, I was going to keep as inspiration for the new me. Grief took a while. I didn’t just wake up May 9th and say “okay she’s dead, I’m healed” I handled that grief first. December 24,2024 we were at my mom’s house for the regular Noche Buena dinner. I served myself a very large plate. In the middle of eating, I looked down and said “I don’t want to look like this anymore” & on December 27th,2024, I started my weight loss journey. I wasn’t going to wait till Jan 1st like everyone else. If I was going to do it, I had to do it now while depression wasn’t at her strongest. We had mad work to do. You created internally a really cool new you, but you didn’t want to show her because you’re 210lbs. My husband always jokes and says, “If you’re sad, just don’t be sad” and honestly, solid advice babe! I didn’t want to be sad anymore and I did what I had to do to not be sad and that included losing 60lbs. It took me a year to get to where I wanted to be, but I got there. I got some new tattoos. I started to “create my aesthetic”. I knew exactly who I wanted to be now. The hot wife and mom who still blogs but her shirt is now smaller.
I needed some extra safety with the sad stuff so about a year later I did get on Wellbutrin. Really sometimes it takes more than just you to keep that monster away. That’s fine. No shame in some meds, if they are going to help you be better. I’m not saying she’s gone, but she is tucked away, locked up, she’s not in the closet with the faulty door. She’s in a cage somewhere not really fighting that hard to get out anymore. I think depression knows the new me is stronger than not only the old me, but she’s stronger than her. I used to be suicidal. I woke up every single morning wanting to, needing to die. I turned my suicide note into a book, that’s how long it was. I titled it “The Penthouse I Promised you” because in all my years of sadnesses, I promised every person in my life that I was going to be rich and famous, and I would get them a penthouse. But more than just them, I promised myself that I would get it. Don’t do it yet, just hold on a little longer till you get it. And here I am, 3 years after I wrote the book telling you, I got my penthouse. I didn’t get a high rise in the city, but I got my dream home. A home where I am here, in the present, as a mom, as a wife, as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend and I created a home for the old me to retire and relax, she worked really hard for so many years, she deserved it. I built a life that I am so proud of telling people about. People who meet me now read it & tell me they can’t even believe that the girl standing in front of them, is the same girl who wrote that book. That is the penthouse. That is what I fought 7 years to have. To just be. Not to be happy all the time but to understand my emotions. I know why I get sad. I know why I get happy. I know my whys and that’s all I ever wanted.
I did it. I stayed alive long enough to see me get The Penthouse I Promised you.
A Collection of Wavy Essays 