Safely home

Have you ever found yourself so far off course that you didn't know how to get back?   Did you take a turn somewhere and then another and another until you were so turned around you couldn't figure out where you'd come from?  Or maybe it wasn't you at all.  Maybe the wind or the flood waters came rushing in so fast that all you could do was hang on and hope you survived, even if you found yourself 80 miles north of where you started out.

That's what happened to this blog.  It got lost.   Well, actually, it was there waiting for me all along, but I was 80 miles north and I couldn't find any landmarks to help me get home.  I think, for me, it was a combination of things.   I took one step in the wrong direction and before I knew it there was a storm blowing in like nothing I'd ever seen before.   The darkness that hovered over me was so disorienting that I never thought I'd see the sunlight again.

I wanted to get back to this blog.   I wanted to write.  Oh, how I desperately longed to write.  But as I found out, there are just some things in life you can't write about - not because you don't want to, but because you just can't find the words.   Sometimes the darkness is so consuming, the pain is so raw, that all you can do is hang on.  You take one breath and then another.  You wipe away the tears.  You try to breathe some more.   Amidst this alternately screaming into your pillow, screaming at God and your lungs screaming for air, you just hang on.

But even after the darkness begins to clear, there is debris.  There is rubble that you must climb and claw your way over or through to get back home again.   You can't go around it, and so, it's a slow, painstaking process just to clear a short path.  When you've got 80 miles to travel, sometimes it feels like you will never get home.

And yet, here I am.  I'm home.  At least, I think this is home.  It's not quite the way I remember it before the storm hit.  But it's the closest thing I can find, so I'm staying put.  It's been a long journey back and I'm weary.   I may never find the me that got swept away, but I'm trying to recreate myself the best I can.   I'm trying not to look back.  I'm trying to be grateful that I survived.  

Maybe someday I'll write about this past year and why it took me so far from home, but for now, I just want to settle into my blog, put my feet up and enjoy the company of my old friends.   I hope you still recognize me.  I'm sure I have some battle scars and like all writers end up doing, I'm sure my experience will seep out and fill the spaces between the lines of this blog.  I can only hope that as I keep looking for remnants of my old self, keep reclosing the wounds, keep calling out to God, you'll walk beside me and you'll remind me that I'm alive.   And maybe, just maybe, if you ever find yourself alone in the dark, you'll reach out and find my hand.   I'll help you navigate the storm.  I'll help you breathe.  And I'll walk beside you until you, too, are safely home.