One year.
365 days.
Oh, how much can change in so little time.
I didn't sleep much the night before.
I was so hopeful, so ready to step into my dreams.
I remember lying awake, staring at the ceiling that lay beyond the dark of the room,
a perma-smile on my face just thinking about how close I was.
Flight after flight, hour after hour,
and as the plane descended into Phuket International Airport,
I wept with joy.
There were some miscommunications and so there was no one there to pick me up at the airport,
but nothing could touch my joy.
I was home.
Finally.
The hours turned to days, and the days into months
and I fell more in love with the nation beneath my feet.
But as my heart grew to love more,
there was a darkness that pushed back hard.
It didn't take long for me to recognize the signs...
Not three months before I arrived in Thailand, I had ended an abusive relationship
and I knew the darkness creeping in all too well.
They knew how to throw words like knives.
They knew how to manipulate my heart.
I could see it all happening, but I felt powerless to stop it.
I decided to forgive.
I decided to have grace and patience and love for them.
I could see the pain they were going through.
I could see how hard it was for them.
So I took bullet after bullet until I found myself all alone one night,
weeping on the cement floor of my shared house.
I let the full realization of the situation wash over me.
I sank into my heartbreak and I prayed what I hadn't dared to pray.
I asked God to get me out.
I begged Him to rescue me.
I cried and I cried.
I couldn't believe what I had gotten myself into.
Didn't I know better?
Did I not just rip myself from a relationship just like this?
Shame on me.
Shame on me for believing them, for trusting them.
I didn't know how to separate the lies from the truth anymore.
I forgot who I was because I let them define me.
And even at the end,
I prayed for ways to honour them.
I prayed God would give me an open door, but that it would truly honour them.
Even at the end I wanted to do the most loving thing for them.
And I will never, ever regret that.
When I first got home,
I didn't eat.
I didn't sleep.
I didn't feel.
I was comatose.
And every moment since then has been a struggle as I try to remember who I am and what makes me good.
I have tried to block out their words about me, about God, about life,
but when someone who was supposed to protect you and cover you decides to abuse you instead,
it's hard to come back from.
And that's scary for me to put out there because I've purposely kept rather quiet about what really happened in Thailand, and even more silent about how I'm dealing with it.
I'm better than I was...
I see with more clarity than I did.
But I feel like I've only just begun the long road to emotional and spiritual healing...
Now, one year later, this is where I'm at.
One year from the day I stepped into what would become the hardest season of my Christian life.
Instead of being on a beach celebrating the first anniversary of my move to Thailand,
I am sitting on a hard Starbucks chair watching a blizzard rage around me.
Sometimes I regret leaving.
I couldn't ever truly express how it broke me to get on a plane and leave a place that holds so much of my heart.
Sometimes I feel like I bailed too soon.
Like maybe if I had just stuck it out one more week, one more month...
But the reality of that would have killed me.
I was already barely alive as I stumbled through airports and into my bed that I had left just six short months before.
As I was watching the snow fall today,
I couldn't help but think of how clean everything around me looked.
How present the silence is when you walk out your door and into the snow.
It deafens the chaos.
It is heavy, and causes you to move a lot slower,
but in the end,
it makes way for new life.
And I suppose that's what I'm waiting for...
To remember what it feels like to be alive again.
Those moments that take your breath away,
the moments where you have to stop and take a mental note of everything and everyone around you so you never forget that feeling.
The moments where you truly feel alive....
One year from the day that I left for Thailand,
I can barely remember who that woman was.
The woman that was so full of hope and promise and joy.
And most days I'm not sure where to go from here.
But I know that eventually,
even if it feels a million years away at this point,
I will be okay.
If nothing else,
I have to believe that this too shall pass.
And that everything - even a hot mess like me - will be okay again...
