You are so much stronger than you believe you are.

Domestic violence, escape, faith, be here now.

Only recently have I come to realize, that I never really knew what having faith felt like. For me, faith must be felt, not just believed in. You need to be able to feel god cradling your heart, hand at your back, gracefully gesturing towards the next step we must take.

Time to myself is few and far between. And time to write, even more so. I feel so rusty and creaky at weaving words together these days, and the only way to remember how, is to just do it.

After a year and a half of living in fear and my circumstances reaching a fevered pitch, I bailed on my old house and ran to the safety of my friends house, with Uusi and my (then) 9 month old baby. I was so stressed, so tired and so out of sorts my milk supply had dropped and the skin on my hands were peeling and burning due to stress-related eczema. Each day I would wake up at my friends house, running on pure adrenaline, cooking, cleaning, and helping them in some way — as I felt it was owed and I felt a burden to them. I wouldn’t let myself rest, I couldn’t relax. The nervous system on a constant high alert.

I’d been running at this pace for almost half a year into my first year as a mother, I was ready to collapse.

A few days after landing at my friends house, through friends of friends, I was able to find housing. The house was strange, a little crooked (literally) — but it was perfect. It held such a calm and safe energy to it, a soft healing glow.

The landlord was more than accommodating, rent was affordable (for the area) and I got assistance through social services for a domestic violence housing grant. We moved in early November.

Moving all of my things into the house, felt so strange. Suddenly, all my stuff, all the important things I was able to grab in rushed leaving, felt so heavy — felt suffocating. So I have begun to slowly widdle my things down to only things I truly cherish (and lean into dopamine decor).

I truly did not think I had the strength to leave, it only ever felt like a pipe dream, a fantasy that I could live without the constant struggle, the constant hope of understanding, the constant work to hope my pain could be seen, that the hurt could stop. So much felt impossible, and sometimes I wondered, am I just lazy? Am I not scared enough? What will it take?