a time to run.

I’m writing to you on my first official day of freedom, with my service dog next to me and my nine year old cat asleep on the foot of my bed for the first time in years.

(See, even my sweet cat had been banished downstairs, away from me in recent years. . .)

After spending our first night in our little cottage, all of our furniture is arriving in waves between now and Tuesday, so my precious 16 year old daughter is asleep on the loveseat across the room right now.

All is calm.

All is bright.

Honestly? We have been hoping, praying, planning for this dayfor so long — but unsure when of if it would be possible.

We have even been collecting things.

However, I have RA and CRPS — with symptoms made so much worse by they stress of our situation — and we just didn’t know if we would ever find a place we could afford on our own even when my long-awaited disabiliy came

So we lived in the shadow.

And what did that look like?

In the House of Hades it looked like:

- My older two children being run out, told they were never welcome back, and their things taken to the dump while I was quite ill and sleeping.

- Telling me “not to get sassy” and starting to swat my hands away from the air conditioner controls in the car.

- Interrupting me every time I tried to speak — to the point that friends and family members commented on it.

- Finding a reason to dislike ALL of my friends — that he previously liked.

- Pulling my best friend aside at Dia de los Muertos, where we had taken alters to remember her husband who had recently passed away — to tell her that the festival was really “our thing.”

- Waking me up yelling when a food delivery came to “get the damn door” even though my CRPS feet weren’t working, I COULDN’T WALK, and he was between the door and me.

- Staying home on the days he knew my pain medication was due.

- Criticizing everything my youngest daughter and I did. If we turned left, we should have turned right. If we turned right, we should have turned left.

- Walking through the door complaining about what was not done — to follow it up with “I know you can’t walk right now.” — only to complain some more.

- When I COULD get around to Christmas shop — on December 23rd — calling me, shouting, “What the hell!!!” when I answered the phone, when we were exactly where we said we would be, out shopping.

- Tracking my cell phone. Yep.

While these behaviors had intensified, they were nothing new — and my youngest daughter and I had endured them for years.

After many tears and much prayer, our miracle came last week in the form of our cottage.

And I thanked the Lord, signed the papers, and RAN.

I have never been so grateful in all of my life.

I CAN BREATHE.

We are free.

No one is coming through our door uninvited, mean, or nasty ever again.

It’s our own door now.

And I will guard it fiercely.