On letting go

  I wouldn't have let go if I'd truly known the cost. Getting rid of stuff wasn't the worst of it, although on a bad day, I'll cry because I left the playset that had harbored a hundred pirates, explorers, and dreamers. I cry for the window that oversaw it all. I'm wistful when I remember how I once had an unshakeable standing in a community that loved me.

  I don't know that there was one moment of abandonment either. More like a slow unraveling of every idea that was precious and true and then realizing they were true and not true. In doing that, I lost my footing. Sometimes, I say I fell down the rabbit hole of grace, and I'm never going back. Because I can't. It turns out my old life is not the safest place for someone like me. I feel like I'm constantly searching for my people, for refuge.

  I am a stranger in a strange land, and on those occasions when someone tells me I am enough, I want to collapse upon them just for a moment. I want to rest. The desire to extend sanctuary compels me to keep unraveling. It's a drug, and I want to give it away.