God Bless This Mess(64)

I went to hold up my trophy. The glorious Mirrorball trophy. I prepared for the weight of the shimmering, gold-plated trophy to find it . . . weightless. It looked so pompous and grand on the outside, but it was hollow inside. And doesn’t that just symbolize the whole experience for me? I’m glistening beautifully as I twirl on the dance floor, but I’m really empty and in a million pieces as I fall from the hollow high.

The trophy literally broke on the way to NYC for our GMA appearance the next morning. The one thing I put everything into amounted to nothing.

I won DWTS, and I have never been less confident. I still think I can’t really, really dance.

It was NOT ENOUGH.

I WAS NOT ENOUGH.

It was merely the hardest, most all-consuming distraction I could find to not deal with what was going on in my heart.





Chapter 20


Heels in My Hands


I suffered a broken toe, bruised ribs, and more on DWTS, and I kept telling myself, “Take a cortisone shot. Get through the week, and then when you win, you’ll have time to heal!” It was like that in the pageant world, too: “Let’s put a Band-Aid on it, let’s get through it. You can cry when you get home.” Whenever I scraped my knee as a little girl, I’d been taught to just rub some dirt on it and keep going, too.

I had done that all my life.

Pain is what we feel when something isn’t right in our bodies. When something is bruised or broken or cut, it hurts, and the pain we feel is letting us know that it needs to be looked at and tended to. It’s the same with the pain in life, in your heart, in your mind, in your soul. When you don’t take time to rest and tend to the emotional pain you’re in, chances are you’ll seek out some sort of temporary relief. For some it’s drugs or alcohol. For some it’s pouring everything into their work. For me it was always “What is the next distraction I can find?” instead of tending to whatever was crying out to be healed.

I needed to stop doing that to my heart. I needed to stop rubbing dirt on my emotional scars. I needed to rest and take whatever time I needed to take. To heal.

The thing is, there are times when you’re moving too fast or maybe headed in the wrong direction, when if you don’t stop your life, God will stop it for you.

*

After DWTS was over, I finally got a break, and I rested—for like two whole weeks over the holidays.

That wasn’t even close to what I needed.

I went home to Alabama, and slept in my old bed, and then came back to LA in January 2020 to get ready for my one performance on the DWTS tour.

DWTS was such an incredible experience, and I wish I had allowed myself to have more fun with it than I did. But I was in just too much of an emotional state to handle anymore, and certainly not a whole tour. I needed a break. And heck, maybe if they ever do another DWTS: All-Stars, they’ll invite me back on. Because I sure would love to compete on that show when my heart isn’t aching so much.

I used some of my earnings from my time on TV to move into a new apartment. It was still near studios, in a busy part of the city. A lot of people don’t know this about Los Angeles, but the Hollywood area can be an hour-plus to drive to the ocean in traffic, and it seems like there’s always traffic. What I always wanted was to live by the beach. But I thought I needed to be in the center of everything for whatever would come next in my “career.” That’s where everyone told me I should be. The beach was “too far away,” they said. So I listened.

On the positive side, the money I made from The Bachelorette allowed me to pay off my student loans and my credit cards. But after spending money on hairstylists and makeup artists and clothes and shoes for my appearances and events outside of the show, it wasn’t like I was rolling in dough. The only splurgy thing I bought for myself was a top-of-the line coffee maker: a Jura. I love good coffee, and this thing is like having a personal barista on my kitchen counter.

It was also pretty cool to get invited to celebrity-filled parties and red-carpet events. I didn’t go to many, but when I did, I usually showed up, said hello to whoever I needed to say hello to, posed for a few photos, and left. I just didn’t feel comfortable in that world. What was I? I was surrounded by actors and actresses, musicians, designers, directors. I was none of those things. I didn’t feel like I really belonged.

Living in LA after disconnecting from friends during DWTS was lonely. I spent most nights ordering takeout and eating on my sofa with a plastic fork.

You would think a former Bachelorette and DWTS winner who was now single would get all sorts of interesting DMs from guys looking to take her on a date. But that wasn’t happening. So every once in a while, I’d respond to a party invite and get all dressed up and go out to have a little fun by myself, just to break out of my loneliness.

Lonely is definitely how I was feeling when Peter called me, just before his season started airing on TV. I hadn’t spoken to him since the night he told me he would be willing to leave the show for me.

When he called, he told me all about what had happened on the show, and since I was already sworn to secrecy, he let me know that he and Hannah Ann had gotten engaged. He also told me on that very first call that he was already having doubts.

He said he understood me so much better after going through the experience of being the lead on the show himself. He understood how much pressure I was under, ’cause he felt it, too. In a way, we now had even more in common than we did before.