Today

There are different days all throughout each year that we can celebrate freedom. Perhaps you have a day like me, the date you'll never forget because it's the day you walked away and never went back.

Today marks 8 years. 8 years since......

It was a Monday morning. This was a planned thing, not a "run out the door" kind of thing. I had been through this before, but not in the same way. This time I would leave with anything and everything that was most important--the rest was "whatever".

I did all the things I normally did to get him off to work. I think I did my normal 10 miles on my stationary bike and got Teagan up for school. She already knew the plan, but I went over it with her again. I put her on the bus as I explained to the bus driver what was happening that day. She was not to get on the "home" bus. She knew this, but...just in case she forgot. He said he hoped that everything was going to be okay and he would do his part for me.

I went back into the house and methodically went through each step I had worked out in my mind. I got to packing the available suitcases with everything I could think of and started writing a letter to him. I made sure the dishes were done, I didn't want to leave with any mess. I took the house key off my key ring and put it on the counter. I laid out the bills on the roll top with a notebook that had bill pay and income and such all organized the way he liked it to be. I went and got his Bible out that I had gotten him more than 2 decades before (still in the box) and laid it on the counter with the finished letter and the key.

I had started kind of packing the car, but wanting to make the most of every inch of room had me distracted. I was also distracted by him. Messaging me more than normal, asking what I wanted for Mother's Day, coming up on Sunday. It was the oddest thing to me. For 25 years I had been with this man. He knew me, better in some ways potentially, than I knew myself. He had shaped me really, to a certain extent. Never in the history of us being together had he ever offered some sort of "extravagance" like going to the spa or something like that. Some years before this I had started washing my family's feet for Valentine's Day. A way of giving Jesus to them in the way I loved on them. He thought it was weird but let me do it. For him to offer a spa day and then take it a little further and offer to do a home spa day, was jaw dropping. Almost enough to make me stop and wonder if he was for real. But my heart knew better. My physical body knew better...My head and parts of my body still hurt from where I had connected with the cement slab next to the house a few days before.

All of a sudden there was this wave of fear that ran over and through me and scared me more than I can put into words. It was something like 2 hours after I had put Teagan on the bus. I had been thinking that I should run the vacuum once I got everything done so I didn't leave ANY of my responsibilities undone. But THAT...that feeling shot me into high gear. Hell was coming for me if I didn't get out fast enough and that was not optional. I got the car packed, but one of the things I was putting in it was an enormous suitcase. I had used all the strength in me to get the massive thing up onto the edge of the trunk so I could slide it in and realized at the last minute that I would wreck my suitcase with the latch if I did that, so I dropped it back down onto the driveway. Panicking now, I move quickly to get the rest of the car packed before focusing on the suitcase. Every time I went in and out of the house, I saw it sitting there and it was just so daunting. Before I fully packed the backseat, I knew I had to get the suitcase in, so I tried. Every way I could think of, I tried. Wedging so I could get a better angle because I couldn't pick it up. Tried to lift and pull from inside the car. After a little bit, I knew I couldn't spend all this time on this one piece. Funny, there was never a moment where I thought to unzip it and just empty it into the car......I have puzzled over that one for years!! (ha-ha) I finally decided that I was just going to leave it in the driveway, right where it was.

But God.

It was like this hand on my shoulder, this warmth in my spirit as it came over me that I knew EXACTLY where my help was. So, I looked up and I screamed out, "JESUS!! YOUR STRENGTH!! because I have none". When I reached for the handle again, it was light and easy to toss into the backseat. To be honest, my hand was on the handle, but there was no weight to the suitcase.

To give a bit of reference, this was just a few months after losing our oldest daughter. I had some issues eating, dropping more weight than my normal smaller self. When I went to the doctor 3 days after I left, I weighed in at 91 lbs., fully clothed with my shoes on. The suitcase was one of those "biggest in the set" ex-large types. It was probably somewhere around 90+ pounds, but I didn't weigh it, so.... I'll always speak to you in full truth, so I feel like the reference is kind of important.

With the suitcase in the car, I quickly finished packing the car, pulling out the driveway less than an hour after I got "that feeling". Went to Safe Place, got our room situated and headed to Teagan's school to get her as school let out. I cannot begin to describe the relief I felt as we got on the highway after school. It didn't take long for him to get home and find us gone. The phone started ringing before we got off the highway to get to Safe Place. I shut it off. I knew I couldn't talk to him, and it was time to hide for a while now.

When we laid down to sleep that night, the sighs were strong and deep. I had been here before, but when Courtney was little. God had us and I wasn't going to even try to do it on my own this time---too broken, too ruined, too much that I went back to twice already. I listened to Teagan breathing, her head on my chest and my arms around her---I had good reason for deep breaths. We just happened to be in the exact same room as the last one the was assigned to Courtney and I over a decade before. I kind of felt like it was something to confirm I was doing the right thing, something I would have problems with for some years after.

It may not have been to protect myself....my reason for leaving, mostly, was Teagan. I had been a distracted mother to Courtney, and I wasn't going to be around for Teagan at all if I stayed.

I didn't really sleep much that first night, but I was more content, more calm and way more at peace than I had been in years.

8 years ago today, I took my first deep breath of peace in freedom.

What a day.