Excuse me while I settle into this space, so much of this is still new to me. I have started writing this a handful of times now, and my finger hovers over the backspace button more than any other on the keyboard. Delete. Delete. Delete. My hang up is how I am going to make sense of what I have to say  – explain it in a clear and thought out way. Thinking things out and having clarity is a bit of a challenge as of late. There is a lot to sift through. Stick with me.

I am squatting in an empty home in Astoria, Oregon. Not to worry, it is our home – we own it. I did not pick any locks or break any laws to have a roof over my head. The walls of the house are bare, aside from the scuffs left behind by the previous tenant. My voice echos throughout the house, as there is no furniture to catch my sound, and I do have a habit of talking to myself out loud. I have two foam pads with a few blankets and a corrugate box that holds staple kitchen items to make basic meals. A bright blue plastic tot stores my clothes and also acts as a side table where I place my morning coffee and have a few candles that I light to soften the emptiness of it all. It sounds a bit melancholic, and at times it is, yet it is the only space I know to be right now.

Landing here is the culmination of many things and this is where I get hung up on telling you more – not because I do not want to share this story, but because I am not sure how to make sense of it, or how to tell it simply. Be patient with me as I peel back the layers. This will take time.

For the next 30 days or so, I have chosen to live a very separate and quiet lifestyle. This choice came after six very emotionally exhausting months. Six months of losing total grasp of myself, of giving up alcohol only to return back and then trying to stop again, of watching my marriage crumble, of recognizing my brokenness and revisiting my faith, of testing my inner strength, of discovering how weary I am in my work and how passionless I feel in my 9-5 day. In the past six months I have felt more alone and yet more supported than in all my 36 years of life. It’s been a twister than has picked me up, set me down, swirled me back up, thrashed me around… and I am not sure when the ride will end. The lessons have been thick, and most of them I am still trudging through, high above the solid ground.

How I came to the choice of temporarily disassociating with everything came from a part of me I can’t yet explain. Have you ever experienced a part of you, a part you never knew existed, come to the surface and take control? Well, that is what happen to me – almost like a fight or flight moment. To survive this extremely challenging time, an inner portion of me has risen up and calmly said “enough”, and I am listening. I have finally begun practicing the action of listening to my mind, body, and heart instead of denying what they ask for. In the past, I’ve been a master of fighting the requests of my body, mind, and heart because those needs were not conducive to the ridiculous image I’ve clung onto in how others see and experience me. I have also allowed my fears to win over my wants because my insecurities have valued the societal narrative (you know, living your life the way the world portrays we should). I’ve denied myself over and over in an effort to be accepted and to impress… everyone! My family, my husband, my close friends, my co-workers, the people who follow me on my Instagram. And I have felt like I have been failing at even that…probably because deep down it is not my truths I have been living.

So here I finally am, doing away with that bullshit insulation I built to avoid the bigger asks of myself. My gut, my intuition, my inner wise-self have been diligently working together to gently nudge me in the direction of stepping away from it all and spending time alone. Is it ideal that I am away from my husband? No, and it is necessary for me to grow beyond the havoc we endured. Is it the most comforting to be in a huge empty house with very few belongings? No, and yet I am grateful to have a space that will protect me while I grow mentally and emotionally. Do I feel a little bit of sadness and a sense of depression? Yes, and that feeling is also paired with this unrelenting merciful whisper assuring me that this is exactly where I am supposed to be. I am feeling new things with each passing moment. I am processing a shit load of emotions. It does, at times feel a little chaotic. I am working through the feelings and shedding layers, only to run around frantically trying to pick those layers back up… in case I need them. Then the inner dialogue begins, coaxing me back into letting the old slough go. It is a process, to shed parts of self that I am not totally sure I am ready to give up. And again, my gut keeps guiding me… reminding me to breathe. It is all meant to be.

All of this desired self-work did not birth from thin air. As I mentioned, it began about six months ago with the onset of what I call my “almost-divorce”, and it spiraled from there into a magnitude of realizations that made my reflection in the mirror impossible to continue ignoring. I could no longer look past myself and continue neglecting the woman standing there waiting to be seen. To carry on ignoring myself and not look inward to make sense of all my layers would be setting myself up for total unhappiness. I’ve been putting on more and more emotional weight over the years and the time has come to choose: either detox the burdens or succumb to the aches and pains of the gain. I’ve chosen to lose that weight and lighten my load.

I have a lot to share. About self, about love, about friendships, about living, about what I am learning. Writing it out has been hard because I have no much I want to explore and I am not sure where to start or how to grasp it all. And so all I can do is start doing it “bird by bird” as Anne Lamott would say.  In time I will get more graceful at it, in time my truths will become more and more evident. I will be able to clean out the unnecessary stuff, the stuff that is taking up valuable space. In many ways, I think spending this time in an empty home is therapeutic, as it is the perfect canvas to clear out my own internal place of rest, my home within.

My husband and I are now mending from our almost-divorce. We still have a lot of growing and healing to do, and our love has become more tenderhearted after the extreme sorrow and tense storm we’ve endured. It was without a doubt our lowest point – a time when we saw the true, authentic vulnerability of one another. While it was a heartbreaking scene to be part of, we saw the most pure parts in one another. Building off those lows to become better people and partners to one another is the next thread to weave into our story.  He is supportive of this time I am taking away. He understands that it is part of the softening after a very hard time. As Trevor Hall beautifully says, “You can’t rush your healing.”

Coming to Astoria meant that I was giving up the warm arms of Mexican sunshine. Originally, my husband and I were scheduled to spend time in a home down there for the first part of the year. He has continued with the plan and my hope is that I soon will join him, where he currently waits and continues to grow and tend to his own personal wounds. I will trust my gut to take me there, just as I have trusted the deep-seeded thought to come to Astoria. The thought blossomed very slowly over the past few months. It started as a shampoo moment and evolved into a lingering idea that knocked every time my mind got quiet. The persistence of the thought, along with how perfectly events were aligning caused me to make the final leap and commit. I’ve felt scared to forgo the original Mexico plan and yet, I know I would always wonder if I did not make sense of this gut feeling. I was led me here to process and I do not know why. In time, I trust those answers will come. The inner voice asking to spend time alone was quiet, gentle, and very rich in authenticity. I could not ignore her – that woman in the mirror looking back at me, patiently waiting. She asked me to give it 30 days, at least. So here we are beginning this new chapter.