Reunion

​Current status: en-route to home. Current mood: inspired. Yesterday was more than I could have asked for. It was EXACTLY what I needed. I am beyond happy that I went. Before leaving I was doubting and second guessing myself. Even as I was getting ready the morning of, the butterflies in my stomach were fluttering. I didn’t know what to expect, if I would feel like I even deserved to be there. Once Jenn and I pulled into the parking lot, it was like time had not passed, and the air was bouncing with positivity. It took only seconds for me to open up, cry, laugh, and use DBT skills. There is something magical about this yellow house that brings back it’s patients. Just shy of a year ago I sobbed as my husband was in another country, and my mom dropped me off as I stood on the porch destined to spend Christmas and New Years in a house where I knew no one, and was being asked to do things I wasn’t sure if I could do. Well it didn’t take long for the strangers to become family, and the hard work, well, that didn’t change. That was still hard as fuck. Let me rephrase: that IS still hard. 
 The relationships didn’t skip a beat. We spent the whole day together, bonding, doing yoga, art, shopping and eating sushi. We talked about our recovery process, where we currently are and where we’re currently struggling while we sat on that porch. That porch where I had cried many months ago as my husband left on Christmas night to spend the night alone in a hotel and eat McDonald’s because there was nothing else open. I was triggered by many memories; some good, some hard. I sat there and looked at the tree that Suzann and I beat the shit out of after a night of mac and cheese, and I wondered how it was still standing. We smashed that tree until we both broke the plastic bats we were using, and that didn’t even stop us. We just kept swinging. We talked about the tole being gone from families took on them and on us, and we wondered if we could even do it again. I didn’t realize how incredibly brave it was for me to commit to treatment and to stick with it. It was incredibly brave of me to leave my home, my state, my family.  I did not realize it at the time because I didn’t have another choice. It was go to treatment or die. 
I cannot thank that yellow house enough for what it did for me. I cannot thank them enough for allowing us back to reminisce and recommit to recovery. But let me be clear, I still don’t want to do it again! 

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