Coming Back Home

I will be on my way home soon. The retrial is August 27th, so I will be home somewhere around then. I promise to make some phone calls to some important people once I get my cell phone back. I'm pretty excited about coming back, although a little sad to be leaving my family. I've started to fit in here. It would be so easy to just stay, but here it would be so much more difficult to get back everything I used to have. In the US it's easier, more opportunities. I'm planning a move, you all know that. I think that will be the best thing for me. What used to be my life is no longer, I think starting over deserves a new location. What better time to relocate than when I have no strings to tie me down.

Since I've been here and I haven't been working I've had a lot of time to sit and write, to think, and to come to terms with everything. It's been a long road this past year and a half. Sometimes I can't believe just how long, I remember when it was good. Other times it seems like so long ago, I just turn away from it and look towards my future. I do have one. A future. That is one thing I have decided. I have a future, one that no one in the world will take away from me.

It has been 5 months now that Jess has been gone. That's almost half a year. I've been through the denial, the sadness, the anger, bargaining, I think now....I'm finally starting to accept it. I get that there is nothing I could have done to stop her. It was her choice to do something as stupid as she did. It hurts me still that she was so selfish, but for whatever reason, it was meant to happen. I'm sure I will still have days when I'm sad or angry. But Jess has moved on from the earth I live on. I know she's watching me. I know she loves me. I know she didn't mean to hurt me. I know she herself was hurting far too much to think of anyone else's pain. I feel a great amount of pain, knowing how much she hurt, knowing I couldn't take it away. I know that someone I loved more than anyone else in the world was in so much pain that not a single person could have stopped her. That hurts. I hate her father for the pain he enflicted on her and for the coward he became once she was dead! But to carry all of that anger and hurt around inside me is more damaging than it is for me to forgive a dead man.

As long as I've been here, I haven't had any flashbacks or nightmares. I've slept a sound 8 hours. For the first time in so long I can't remember, I am able to sleep. Knowing that my family is here to watch over me and keep me safe, knowing that no one here will hurt me, it's a relief. Not having to look over my shoulder and wonder if I will be safe, it feels good.

I've lost my city, my house, my child, my wife, my job, a part of me that I used to love, but still....there's something left. There is a part of me so raw and strong and beautiful I never knew existed. It doesn't come from what I've learned or how I grew up, it comes from something so much deeper than that. It comes from what women before me gave to me. I can't explain how I see myself now, because I can't entirely remember what it felt like to be me before all the shit. I'm different. I'm scarred, marked, bruised, whatever, but scars fade and bruises heal. When I reach the other end of the spectrum who knows what I will become. All I know is that whatever I look like then, I will be stronger and more able to help other people because of it. I survived.

I hope this finds you all well. I am sorry I haven't been in contact much. I hope that this will help to assure you all of my safety and well being. I love you. I'm thinking of you. I'm praying for you. You are just as much my family as the people I'm staying with. Big hugs. See you and talk to you all very soon.