The last sixteen months have been the best months of my life. My solitary season began in May 2022 when I ran away from home, leaving my husband and two of my adult children behind. Maybe I shouldn’t say I ‘ran away from home’ because they knew I was leaving but few others did. My husband and I agreed it was time for me to go; he would join me at some point in the future. I was glad to be leaving, optimistic about what being on my own would mean.

I packed up everything I owned, shipped it where I would be living, leaving without any fanfare. Things had been difficult for a long time. I was dealing with my mental, physical, and emotional health—feeling like I was losing the battle on every front.  One year I had a very long bout with pericarditis, with pleural effusion. Eight months later, after being released from treatment by my doctor, I seriously injured my back and had to have surgery. To add insult to injury, I had to have two more surgeries at the height of the pandemic. I was tapped out.

I was also diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, with a few other alphabetized syndromes tacked on, that required a small handful of medications. Trying to keep track of the next thing and the thing after that left me drained.  Desperately searching for any words to inadequately explain why I was so angry, depressed, and emotionally disheveled to my bewildered family members presented another hard set of high hurdles to clear.

How can I tell you what I go through when I don’t even understand it? I think I know what it is, but I don’t know why it is.  I needed so much grace, an oasis of refreshment in the dry desert of circumstances—any place to lay my weary head.  I had nothing left to give, nothing to offer, no creativity or imagination to conjure another alternative. I wanted out. I didn’t care if anyone cared, or what it looked like. I was just that ready to go. For good.

Tight hugs and goodbyes at the airport were bittersweet, knowing I would reconnect with my husband at some point but never again live in the state I had called home for thirty-five years. Everything that was familiar to me was there. My family, decades of relationships, I’d known nothing else. As my boarding pass was scanned and I headed to my seat, I looked back toward the jetway knowing my old life was over and my new one would begin in two-and-a-half hours, seven hundred twenty-one miles away.

I wasn’t sure what I would encounter on this journey. I was there for a reset, to cover new ground and blaze new trails. I had gotten away from everything and everyone I knew, but when I got to where I was going, I met someone I thought I knew but realized I didn’t: ME.

The honeymoon lasted about a year; I was learning my way around, making acquaintances, falling in love with my surroundings. Then, out of nowhere, I began to understand why I had been allowed to leave and embrace such drastic change. My surroundings were not all that needed investigation and contemplation; I personally needed to do both at a gut level. The extent of my need would be made perfectly clear, but thankfully in stages.

Initially, I learned how to be alone and comfortable with myself. There was a lot of noise in my head that needed to be quieted—anxiety, fear, unresolved trauma to be untangled, and a deeply wounded soul in serious need of mending. I worked with my therapist. I started taking the right medications, getting down to the business of finding myself. I talked with my mentors, dug deep spiritually, practiced how to give myself a break when I was judging and condemning myself unmercifully and unnecessarily.

My therapy took a huge turn when I could not only address my trauma but become intimately acquainted with it. Deeply feeling and processing the hurt, letting the fact that I had been victimized sink in, and letting go of any notion that I was a victim. I was reading a book I could have written myself; the author had told my story in her own words. But the very thing she encouraged I had never done; I never allowed myself to talk about how the events that haunted me most of my adult life made me feel. I was shocked when it dawned on me that I had never spoken any “feeling words” aloud.

My therapist asked me, “What did you feel?” I remember feeling small and incapable of being good after severe punishment. Like I was bad because I continued being punished. I cannot change I often told myself. I feel anger when I am not allowed to make my own decisions. I feel rage when people hurt me repeatedly and never acknowledge their abusive behavior or apologize. I was purging and healing at the same time.

The what finally had a why. Triggers had a definition. My mental and emotional health were normalizing; my physical health aligned and was the outward manifestation of change. I was getting it! I understood. I hadn’t really run away from home. I was running toward myself and was pleased to meet me, finally.

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It’s Twelve Days of Guest Posts

We see you, Sis!
For reading, sharing, submitting your stories—
for uplifting and empowering each other—
we want to say “thank you.”
So, for 12 days in December, we will feature all your stories on the blog.
Happy holidays, community!

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