Starting Over – My Story
by Tom Whiteman
The school janitor heard the snickering behind his back. Teenagers can be pretty cruel. All they saw was a man who had to mop floors for a living – probably a dropout, certainly a loser. The janitor wanted to tell them the whole story. He had a college degree. He’d been a professional. He’d bought a house. He’d been married.
But his wife had left him, and then the bottom dropped out. He lost his job. He lost his confidence. As he went through the emotional devastation of divorce, he had no drive. To pay the bills, he worked at a deli slicing mean – and here at the high school, mopping up after these smart aleck kids.
The janitor’s name was Tom Whiteman. This is my story.
I spent a couple of years in the pit of depression and anger. My wife had ruined my life, I was convinced, robbing me of a promising future. I saw myself as a failure, a victim of circumstances behind my control. After nursing my ill feelings for quite a while, I suddenly had a moment of clear thinking. “If you don’t like your life,” I told myself, “why don’t you do something about it?”
Instead of blaming my ex, my fate, and God, I finally took responsibility for my life. How could I get out of my dead-end job? How could I start to rebuild? I decided to go back to school, getting a more marketable degree.
It wasn’t easy, finding the right school, going through the application process, and then restarting my education – not to mention the financial crunch of paying school bills. I had to give myself a number of pep talks along the way. But I wasn’t passing the buck anymore. I was taking responsibility for my own future.
In the following years, there were many events I can only call miraculous. So I don’t think I can say that I “pulled myself up by my bootstraps.” The power and love of God were very real to me, and without them, I wouldn’t even have any bootstraps. But a key moment in my recovery was when I decided to stop moping and start coping. “If you don’t like you live, why don’t you do something about it?” Without that “Aha!” moment, I might still be mopping floors.
I ended up becoming a licensed counselor and have gone on to earn a Ph.D. degree. Along the way I’ve managed to start a few businesses , write some books, and participate in the development and growth of the Fresh Start ministry.
I hope you’ll join me through the week as I do a series of posts on starting over. I’ve told my story and shared most of this material in a book I wrote with Randy Peterson titled Starting Over: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Rebuild Your Life After a Breakup.
Adapted from material originally © 2001 by Thomas A. Whiteman and Randy Peterson
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