It took me two years. Healing from abuse, finding the confidence to believe that you are capable of leaving—it takes a long time. It also takes seeing the other life that is possible. * * * The spring I was 30, I began to make friends with a coworker of mine at the college. WeContinue reading “Breaking Away”
Category Archives: Healing
My Breakdown in a Bus Depot
And then I went to New York. If you have been asleep, New York will slap you out of it. I boarded the Q47 bus and watched the sunrise from the bus window, mentally reviewing Manhattan’s grid of streets and the carefully plotted route that would take me to the Hotel Chelsea for a nightContinue reading “My Breakdown in a Bus Depot”
My Escape Plan
Leaving an abuser can be dangerous, particularly for women. In 2017, the U.N. reported that 50,000 women are killed each year by intimate partners or relatives worldwide. Four out of five victims of intimate partner violence are women. And in cases where an abuser murders others before killing themselves, 94% of those murder victims areContinue reading “My Escape Plan”
Grandma
Out of all the places I’ve lived, only one has ever meant home. My grandparents’ house on South Fruitland Street. It’s not much to look at. Built in 1949, the house is a three-bedroom ranch. A white gable spans the front door and the bay window. My grandmother had the clapboard painted a powder puffContinue reading “Grandma”
What We Talk About When We Talk About Triggers
When survivors call a film “triggering,” we are paying it a compliment. Whether it’s a vet watching SAVING PRIVATE RYAN or a rape survivor watching HIGH LIFE, it makes no difference. If we say a movie was triggering, we are saying the director did their homework. They got it right. It means what you areContinue reading “What We Talk About When We Talk About Triggers”
The Discovery of No
I was 25, and I had just learned it was possible to say no. And just like a giddy two-year-old, I began to slap down this word in the midst of conversations, relationships, workdays. One of my library managers planned all our Halloween costumes that fall. We would all dress up as characters from The WizardContinue reading “The Discovery of No”
Shelving Books
Libraries are not what you think. They are not havens. They are not sanctuaries of peace and learning. Each morning I unlocked the book drop-off bins and wheeled the returned books into the library. Sometimes orange juice or applesauce had been spilled on a book jacket. Other times, the stench from a pile of spyContinue reading “Shelving Books”
Thailand
Top had booked his first visit home in three years, and I went with him. I had learned so much living above the Thai restaurant. And yet I had learned nothing at all. Thailand, I thought. Asia. More than 9,000 miles away. I expected freedom. I expected healing. For my relationship with Top. For myself.Continue reading “Thailand”
The Beginning of the End
A few months before my graduation, I came home after classes one day to find my parents in the living room. The lights had been shut off and the blinds drawn. The ivory sofa loomed gray in the dim light, and my father sat in the center of it like a king upon a dais,Continue reading “The Beginning of the End”
PiMam
About five months after I moved in, another woman joined us upstairs. PiMam*. She was another relative of the owner, and she too hoped to make a name for herself and earn a profit. The family voted to grant her an equal share in the restaurant’s ownership, and she was given a room towards theContinue reading “PiMam”
The Trailer Park MFA 