Gaining Ground

Years ago I packed up my entire life and moved it miles away from home to a house that never once felt like mine, to live with a man who knew only how to be harsh, critical and unkind. I thought that I could live with my mistake and I tried. I really tried. I spent a year trying to be perfect. To do everything right. To keep the house as clean as I could keep it. To keep my mouth shut and not say a word.

Trying so hard to be something I never really wanted to be took its toll. The first few months after I left, I lived as if I were in the witness protection program. Always hiding, always avoiding any place where we might accidentally meet. Always looking over my shoulder, worrying.

My new home became my refuge. I poured my soul out in many colors on the walls. Arranged my furniture in ways that pleased me and made me smile. And ever so slowly, I began to remember what it was like to feel like me. Unburdened.

I like to think that my home and I needed each other. With every coat of paint, with every improvement I made, I released the potential in us both. I would invite people over, and I would say, if you could have seen it before. And I was so proud to come home at the end of the day to a space that always made me feel like it was welcoming me home.

But now I feel the time is coming once again to make a change. To something more permanent, to something that I can truly call my own. And I think I may have found it, or at least I'm hoping that I have. And though there is a sadness to bring anything that has done me well to a close, I know I've gotten what I came here for.

A brand new heart. A brand new chance. A brand new life.

And I am thankful in ways I am still beginning to know.