There's a lightness inside me I haven't felt for ages. I remember the feeling in the before that came with unknown. That weightlessness left me in Durango on that night. At the time, the world and I were tethered on a path that could lead anywhere, but certainly, always with love.
I was living out of that rust-twinged diesel Jetta, and Randy offered his home as a place to land for a few days. The access to a hot tub required extending invites to my burrito-rolling colleagues. No one showed, so I was off to bed, or so I thought. I still remember the crunch of the gravel as his white pickup rolled into the driveway.
I rarely let myself revisit the unfolding, the gin soaked memories, the horror. The moment the lightness left wove into the ceiling eyelock. I left my bones in hopes of it not being true. Ever since, the heaviness of the many deaths that followed filled me with fear, the belief that the lightness is why he chose to stifle my shine. As I let myself return there now, sobs spill. For the first time in ages, I feel sorry for the way I've blamed the adventurous, open, trusting self that opened the door that night.
As the emotion moves, I can feel my chest soften, like the lightness is weaving back so the armor can rest. I feel the porous palms of my feet, something I lost as I vacated my tissues that night. I'm allowing a swirl of the endlessly curious with my newer, discerning, feeling self. This travel is a practice of repair; of self trust, of possibility beyond catastrophy. Blessed be these tissues who continued beyond that night 12 years ago, the cells that resolved to not let me die with my fractured spirit.
As I remember the many Scottish hands who welcomed and guided me this last week, I also remember that just as I tell anyone else whose body has been overpowered, it was never my fault. With each warm face, gifted pint of Tennets, and many cups of tea, I'm coming back home.
On to Italian seas and gelato, and more room for forgiving the years that blamed me for allowing him to crush me.
