Back home

   There is a quote that goes: "You can't heal in the same place you got sick", and, of course, it's everyone's dream to be able to leave and not look back. In fact, so many do. In today’s world it’s very easy to escape into another realm, another reality, another relationship or another country. In that movement we do find release, sometimes temporary reprieve, but always temporary. At some point we must come home. By “home” I don’t mean the actually physical place, but the home inside of us where we have to revisit it all, the good and the bad, the unspoken, the monsters and ghosts.

    

Upon returning, we feel it all like it was never gone. In fact, sometimes it all comes back with multiplied force, and it overwhelms us. Some people chose to live their whole lives on the run, and they can manage it, but for most of us it’s just not feasible. We have two choices: To sulk and be angry and retreat into ourselves, or to accept reality for what it is with grace and patience. In order to accept, we must learn to make space for our grief and sadness when it arises and also learn to make space for love and joy when they revisit.

   

Recently, I have come home. It didn’t have a choice; it was just my reality. In coming home, I have to face it all again. I imagine I feel like people who come out of rehab and have to use their coping mechanisms to stay sober and build a healthy life. Some wounds reopen, memories return, small anxiety attacks spike within me and I have moments of despair. I return to my young self needing to be rescued and praying for a savior, when in fact, I am the adult who needs to soothe and rescue myself. That is part of my coping skills, calming the inner child and reminding her that we’ve been through so much and we will be ok.

    

   I think we can’t be too strict with ourselves and our dogmas. If I believe that quote, it means I’m doomed to be sick forever. Maybe it is harder in the same place, however, there are other ways to create space to continue healing. Maybe the place is my inner world and I can continue working on making it a wonderful place to be, in teaching my thoughts to be kinder, and in having compassion for the cortisol levels that spike my morning anxiety. I am not good at playing the “glad game” so I won’t force it on me, but I can make small future plans to have things to look forward to to keep me going one day at a time.

    

   I know this is also temporary. Everything is temporary. Even home, is not the same home I left, and be being so it’s a different place. I can heal in a different place. I am not the same person. I honestly don’t even know what “healing” means anymore. It feels like so much pressure to be always healing. Maybe I’ll rephrase it. 

    

   I can live here, I can breathe here, I can hope here, I can love here, I can trust here, and I can just be. It’s my only job right now.