There was a time, maybe three years into the aftermath of my #marriagefromheck–after I’d unceremoniously “run away from home” the evening when the physical, mental, and emotional threatening from him had become too much. I was in the little studio room I rented from a friend once the judge ruled for me to receive more from marital finances than the small disability wage I was getting. Finally I didn’t have to couch surf anymore from daughter to daughter to friend to friend to shelter.

I finally had my own quiet little “safe space.” Just mine. Free to heal emotionally, free to start healing the nervous system that had been shot. My friend and her two teens were welcome company for laughter and weekend breakfasts. Her parents included me in holiday celebrations. I was welcomed, no longer walking on eggshells.

One afternoon I had a fleeting sensation…a clarity of thought, the cessation of the constant traffic in my head. A brief, maybe thirty second, respite…

How do I even describe it?

It was the sound of a sudden, total, silence after the roar of a crowd.

A calmness in my heart. In my soul.

The silence of a muffled world after a night’s snow.

A genuine smile when you see a beloved friend.

A peace.

So short, but so profound.

I remember a sense of awe, thinking, “is this what I have to look forward to one day?”

. . . . . .