Sharing My Story.

I was starting year 5 of having walked away when I began writing this story. 5 years after I left to feel safe enough to even begin putting the memories in print. 5 years before I could take what I remembered and talk about what happened. It’s now been 9 years since walking away and I think I am ready to take what I have written and share. I did my best to see the many beautiful lessons that were learned through my experiences but for a very long time could not decide whether the lessons were worth the cost. They were not. And I struggle to say that, because I would not be me without my experiences. But my choices hurt the two people I love most in this world, my boys, and that will always be a price too high to have paid. It has taken 9 years to move from being able to write about what happened, to being able to share what happened. I wish I could have learned the lessons without the cost, because that payment was made not just through me but also through my boys, and that is not ok with me, I can’t imagine will ever be ok with me. I was supposed to give them better than that. By some grace, my boys and I have stayed close even in the face of the price we paid, and I need to constantly choose not to dwell back there, in regrets. I intentionally, purposefully choose instead to live in gratitude, for my boys, for the lives we all have now, and for the chances life continues to give you, over and over and over to try again, and to do better.