You Deserve Better: Overcoming Life’s Prisons

If I told you that I broke out of prison not once, but twice, would you believe me?

It’s true. The first time, it went like this:

It was an August night in 1991, in a small neighborhood in Moscow, Russia, where I was born. I was 21 years old. My sister and my mother were all sitting on our small couch, which doubled as my mom’s bed at night, watching TV. I can’t recall what we were watching, but I do recall that the TV was muffled by the sounds of scraping metal on the pavement produced by … military tanks.

You see, during that time in 1991, the communist party was trying to remove Gorbachev, the country’s leader at that time, from his power. The Communist Party did not want his progressive changes to free Russia from communism to take effect as it meant those changes would end their regime.

At 21, naïve and somewhat sheltered, I did not fully understand the gravity of what was going on. I just saw the extreme worry in my mother’s eyes. That worry told me that things were getting bad for all of us.

How bad?

Bad enough that my mother said something so profound that evening that her words stuck with me forever.

She turned to my sister and me and with a somber voice, she said. “You two need to leave this country. You need to find the way. You cannot end up like me.” There was a pain and sadness in her voice. You could feel it.

She got to be the person she was because she was a single mom to two teenage daughters in communist Russia. She worked extremely hard. Every weekday, she got up at 5 AM to get ready for work in the dark, then get on a bus for an hour-long ride. She was working as a secretary making just enough to cover basic food and clothing needs. But she never gave up hope and she never allowed us to give up hope. It became apparent that night. When she said those words. “You deserve better.”

She was right. I deserved better.

Yes, I would find a way to flee Russia in search of a new place to call home. It took 3 years, I finished college in Russia and found an immigration program in Canada that took foreign college-educated women seeking to start a new life. My sister and I left Russia with just 2 suitcases each, filled with some clothes, books, pans and pots, and $ 5,000 to our name to start a new life in Canada.

We flew through Rome. As I walked the quiet midnight streets in wintery Rome, I found myself next to the famous Trevi Fountain. I breathed in the fresh, cold air, and I knew right there and then, I broke out of my first prison.

Canada became my new home. I met new friends. I had found a place with opportunities. I felt so free.

And then I met him.

It was the early summer of 2000. I had just graduated from my second college, now in Canada, with a computer undergrad and got a great new job in the computer industry.

Despite all those great things going on in my life, I felt that my biological clock was ticking. I was turning 30 that year.

So, one night I was browsing personals on-line and found him: sweet and charming, who lived in a small town in the US.

Were there red flags?

My friends in Canada saw how controlling he was, how fast he tried to cut me off from them.

And me?

I was so infatuated with an idea of the happily ever after, I ignored every … single … red flag.

After a few visits, I moved to the United States and we got married. All in a matter of 6 months.

And then it all started. Belittling. Control of my every step.

I was stuck in a tiny rural town. The money I made form a job as a receptionist went to support his gambling addiction.

I couldn’t even buy shoes. I used black markers to cover the worn-out spots on my shoes.

How did I allow myself to be put in yet another prison?

This marriage is my “broken place.”

I cannot pretend that it did not change me. It did, but not in visible ways. It made me stronger. It made me who I am today: a fearless female executive who is not afraid to stand up for what’s right.

You see: this marriage is my broken place, but I am NOT broken.

What was that moment that told me I needed to get out of that prison?

It was the summer of 2006. I organized a family outing on George’s Island in Boston Harbor for the company I worked at. Everyone was having a good time.

Except for him.

I came over to check on my ex-husband and our toddler son, and this is when it all started.

“Let’s f*cking go. I am done with this.”

All I kept asking was to keep his voice down.

Then I lifted my head and I saw a co-worker. His face expressed sadness as he was feeling sorry for me …

In my head, I heard my mom’s words from the summer of ’91. “You deserve better.”

Because of those words, I would start looking for a place to move out the very same night. Because of those words, I filed for divorce in the winter of 2007 and because of those words my son and I moved out in the summer of 2007 with just two suitcases each and $ 5,000 to our names.

I was free. Because I knew I deserved better.

I was free to make my own career choices, to meet new friends, to travel.

And later that year, I took a solo trip to Paris. As I walked the midnight streets of wintery Paris, I found myself next to the Museum of Modern Art, a building with lots of big windows. I breathed in the fresh, cold air, and right there and then, I knew I had broken out of my second prison.

And I right there and then I made a promise that I would never allow it to happen to myself or anyone else.

Never in my wildest dreams did I, an immigrant woman and a single mother, imagine that I would become who I am today, a C-level executive, CMO to watch, an inventor with 12 patents, a new market category creator and an award-winning author.

It was all because of those words that my mother said to me that summer night, “You deserve better.” Because of those words, I would dream the biggest dreams.

And because of those words, I am writing to you to know that you all deserve better. Your kids, your family, your friends, we all deserve better.

Fight for your “better”. Help others find their “better”.

Events of our lives, how bad they might be, do not define us. We define ourselves and our paths.

And though we can’t always choose where we are born, or the circumstances of our lives, if we break our prisons, we all can build a life that we deserve.

With love to all of you,

Eugina