REBUILD

It’s 5am. The world is quiet. Outside is dark. It’s by far my favorite time of day. For a long time I wrestled with silence, fought against the stillness. In all honestly, I sometimes still do. But each morning at 5am when I climb out of bed, slide into my slippers, put on a hoodie, make a coffee and sit in my safe little corner… I feel at peace. Some days it might be the only hour I feel it, but it’s something. And for now that’s ok. 

I sit for a moment, watching my coffee brew. It’s funny how habits can feel safe. A routine can keep you grounded. I think back to the last blog I wrote. February of 2021. It’s been 20 months. In some ways it feels like a moment, on the other hand it’s been a lifetime. So much has happened. So much has changed. Why did I stop writing? My coffee is ready and I pull it from the machine, add a splash of oat milk and retreat to the garage where my safe little corner awaits. 

I stopped writing because life got tough. Like really tough. I half smile. Ironic really, even saying that. What part of life isn’t tough? I open my laptop and look at the words I’ve written. It’s hard to be real. It’s even harder to be vulnerable. Does it show weakness? The world we live in says so. Isn’t it so much easier to pretend everything is ok? To put a smile on your face, be positive, criticize those who complain and walk through each day masking the truth of our reality. 

I’ve wanted to write. So many times I’ve opened a blank page and said to myself ‘let’s go’. Yet the minutes would pass and I’d just stare into space. No words would come. A once burning fire sizzled to nothing. Just the remnants of a dark smoke circled the ashes. 

I look back at my laptop. If life is tough then why are we constantly striving for perfection? Why do we so desperately need everyone to believe we’ve got it all under control? When did vulnerability become a weakness and realness make us frail? I didn’t stop writing because life got tough. I stopped writing because overnight my finally put together life fell apart and I became scared to expose weakness and face judgement from a world which had an expectation I could no longer meet. 

See I walked out of human trafficking. I survived. A lot of people know this about me. I’ve shared my story on platforms I never thought I’d stand on. I survived a life many people don’t. I walked into a freedom most never get to experience. I’m a walking miracle. My old life became a past tense and I’d found my new present. For multiple years everything was steady… until one day it wasn’t.

I pause… look around our converted garage. I’m thankful for my home. My space. It’s so easy to take things for granted. Always be looking at the next bigger thing. In a world which moves at a million miles an hour, many of us have forgotten how to be still, in the moment, content, just here. I take a deep breath. In this moment I’m so very grateful. 

November 22nd 2020. My birthday, 23 months ago. My steady life had started showing cracks. I’d moved back from Germany a few months before, leaving my husband there, making the big decision to return to America to get back to a full-time job I’d left behind and loved and was desperate to get back to. Covid was in full swing and the isolation of living in Germany completely remote for a year had been ridiculously tough. So together we’d made the decision to live apart for almost 15 months as my husband finished his tour in Germany and I moved back to Virginia Beach. 

You know sometimes everything about something can feel completely right until it completely doesn’t. No matter how much we tried to prepare ourselves to be apart for that long, nothing can ever really prepare you and so two years ago we walked into the hardest season of our marriage to date. 

I woke up early on my birthday, alone in bed, in a room I was renting from a couple. The dogs slept soundly on their bed. I missed Ryan. It had only been a few months but it had already felt like a year. When you do life so closely with someone and suddenly you’re 4000 miles apart, it feels ‘off’. Like a piece of you is missing. It was dark outside but it was Sunday and Sunday’s were a work day and I had to be at the church early. I got dressed, fed the dogs, put on their leashes and walked outside into the neighborhood. As I walked past the million dollar homes on my 32nd birthday, I remember thanking God for being alive and for bringing me out of my previous life into a whole new one.

I cut across the street into the field which led to the wood trails behind the neighborhood and unclipped the dogs from their leashes so they could run free. I love watching my dogs run. These trails, so close to the house, were a blessing. It can be hard to find good dog walks in Virginia Beach! I made my way further into the woods, following my usual trail. 

I drink my coffee and stare at my laptop as the screensaver mode kicks in. Beautiful scenery floats before me. I’ve always wondered where these places are and how you get to them. There have been many moments where I wish I could have transported myself to sit on top of that mountain, overlooking those lakes, or lie in that hammock inhaling that perfect ocean scent. So much peace. Tranquility. 

I heard him whistle but I hadn’t seen him coming. It was rare to pass anyone on these trails at this time of morning. Especially on a Sunday. But there he was. It only took a second for the panic to rise in my chest, my heartbeat to amplify and a cold sweat to run down my back. I knew instantly he must have followed me and I hated myself. I’d been distracted, inattentive, my mind had been far away. Stupid girl. A hatred I hadn’t felt for myself in a long time charged back in with a vengeance. We’re not supposed to fear. Yet fear was all I felt. 

I hold my coffee tight as I let a tear role down my cheek. I don’t know if I’ve let myself go there in 23 months. I don’t even know if I’ve really let myself cry. It went numb. For a year and a half all I felt was numb. There were feelings, there always are, but I couldn’t access them anymore. The deep loathing was readily available, disappointment in myself, my life and most of all God would override anything else. I spent the better part of 9 months thinking I’d cheated on my husband and he would never forgive me. In a second everything I’d worked for, all the progress I’d made, it came crashing down. Cracks turned into chasms and before I knew it I stood empty, distant, disconnected and immobilized in a life I no longer recognized. 

All it takes is a moment. And life changes forever. I will never be the same person I had been minutes prior to this event taking place in my life. I’ve felt a lot of fear over the years. I’ve had many moments where I wasn’t sure if I’d be alive to see another day. In those woods on November 22nd 2020 I thought it would end. Rape followed by murder. Yet once again, I would live to see another day. 

Despite having walked through years and years of abuse… this one moment in some ways had a bigger impact than all those other years put together. 

I take another sip of my coffee. Swipe my laptop to reawaken it from its slumber. I continue typing, letting the words come readily and feeling the emotions easily. It’s taken a long time to get to this moment. 

I walked home with the dogs once I was convinced he had left. I was dirty. Inside and out. All over again. My hands shook as I opened a note on my phone and wrote every detail I could remember down. There were no tears. It felt like everything inside of me had turned to stone. I walked into the shower, scrubbed my body, got dressed and left for work. I spoke to family and friends and my husband, all wishing me a happy birthday. On the outside I was Chi. On the inside I was numb. 

I finish my coffee. A deep gratefulness envelops my heart. One that can only come by walking through the impossible. I’ve learned more this last year than I have in the last 30. I’ve found a faith deeper than I ever had before. I’d been living on a foundation which hadn’t been complete. Vital parts had been missing. Things I’d never fully understood and chosen to live without. For years I’d built up a false sense of security, living under a protection which was never real. I’d constructed an image for myself which fit perfectly with the world around me. Complete, untouchable and invincible.  Most of it had been subconscious, but it was reality all the same. But the thing with flawed foundations is that they won’t stand the test of time. And eventually it crumbled. And I had to choose to re-build. 

However as the rebuilding commenced, once again I found that doors started opening. Opportunities, work, friendships, connections and possibilities. What happened on my birthday almost took me out once and for all, yet today I’m realizing it’s become the very thing catapulting me into the biggest season of my life yet. I look back at my entire journey. Every hurt, every point where I didn’t think I could keep going, the darkest moments and the most desperate times. They have formed some of the deepest connections and laid the very foundation on which my feet now walk. God has used every single hour to define not only who He is but also what He’s capable of. 

Has any of it been easy? So very far from it. Yet I’m not sure I would go back and change even a moment. I know many of you out there are struggling. Suicides are at an all time high. Today I want to encourage you. If you’re reading this. Keep going. Keep fighting. Seasons change. Days end. Even if it’s been the toughest time yet and it’s been relentlessly long, there will be an end. And one day you’ll look back and see that some of the hardest things in your life have actually become the greatest gifts, the most valuable lessons and your most significant worth. 

I press save and close my laptop. I take a deep breath. This blog was a tough one to write. An even harder one to post. Despite the breakthroughs and the moving forwards, I’m still on a journey. It wasn’t an overnight fix. But each day I’m choosing to fight. Deciding to trust. And determined to overcome. And I know that each day I will continue to look back, smile and be forever thankful that I chose to rebuild.