Be Brave Enough To Walk Away From What’s Killing You, Even If It Looks Like Safety

Here I am in Autumn—my birth month, my sanctuary, my season of truth-telling.
The air cools, the leaves flare into their last brilliant blaze, and something inside me settles.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why you love one season and resist another?
While Autumn is my haven, Spring has always carried the scent of sorrow. But fall… fall prepares me. It grounds me. It steadies my hands for the heavy work of integration.

The Dream Coat of Autumn

Every year, I stitch myself a figurative technicolor dream coat—Joseph returning home, arms open, heart undone. I wrap myself in memory: the regrets, the ruminations, the lessons carved into bone.

Then, with hand over heart,
I lay them gently to rest.

This is my 59th year.
My final sweeping of the decades where I became a mother, lost myself, and fought my way back home.

Fifteen years I’ve spent healing the parts of me that shattered in a marriage built on the illusion of safety.

The Trap of “Safety”

Motherhood was the greatest dream of my heart.
But I lived inside a loveless, hollow home with a man who claimed devotion and delivered devastation. The affection evaporated after the vows; what remained were shadows.

Yet when my daughter was born, I felt a love so powerful, I believed it could mend the cracks.
Surely this overwhelming love would rewrite the story.

I was wrong.

I married for safety, not love—believing comfort was more important than passion after surviving a first marriage full of terror. I thought I’d found a protector.

But the mind, under the right spell, will override every whisper of intuition.
And so I ignored the wolf beneath the wool.

What My Blindness Cost Me

My first marriage had already nearly destroyed me. Five years of dodging the moods of a Narcissistic, Jekyll-and-Hyde alcoholic sociopath. Five years of eggshells. Five years until the restraining order where he told the judge I was a witch—holding up a Halloween magazine cover with me in devil horns and a corset as “proof.”

A Jesus tattoo on his arm and hatred in his heart.

Somehow, I let his words shrink me.
Somehow, I believed I was too much.

All I wanted was love.
All I wanted was safety.

The Lipsticked Pig and the Pedestal of Lies

Two years later, I remarried a man who worshipped my magic—or so I thought.
He called me powerful.
He called me radiant.
He encouraged me to shine.

But he didn’t love me.
He loved the spectacle of me.

He loved the dream woman he could parade and profit from.
He wanted to be my handler, my ringmaster, my puppeteer.

I fell for the lipsticked pig.

I wanted so badly to believe God was gifting me the tenderness I had been denied.

But narcissists never look back.
They only look for someone to blame.

The Reckoning

Today, I step forward with the full truth:
My blindness was born in childhood—where survival required me to see the best in people, even when it wasn’t there.

I have always loved fiercely, wildly, innocently.
All people fascinate me—even the broken ones. Especially the broken ones.

I saw my own wounds in theirs and thought that was connection.
I believed my unconditional acceptance could transform them.

I was wrong.
And it wasn’t noble.
It was self-betrayal.

If I am tired of bleeding on the altar of “seeing the best in people,” then why would I keep returning to it?

The Claw Machine of Hope

Overlooking someone’s shadows is not compassion.
It is a form of gambling.

It is dropping coin after coin into a claw machine, hoping to pull out a stuffed prize while knowing the machine is rigged.

My childhood wiring taught me to demand love, protection, and validation from people who had none to give.

I made myself a dumping ground for the wounds others refused to carry.

I dimmed my light so theirs wouldn’t look so dark.

I spent my life giving away power I didn’t know I had.

The Truth I Can’t Ignore Anymore

The most important thing in my life is knowing my daughter and grandchild are safe.

It took fifteen years to build enough inner safety to even admit that.

I once believed staying in a volatile home was safer for my child than fleeing with her, three beloved cats, and a dog into uncertainty.
I was told no one would help me.
I was told I was “crazy.”
I believed it.

I poured love into a run-down house, trying to create a sanctuary.
But we lived in a minefield.

And now my daughter stands before me—metaphorically legless from her own battles and distraught —asking a question that breaks my heart :

“Mom! Why can’t I run?”

She knows not running means a slow death, a life fraught with turmoil and repeating patterns.
She knows her child depends on her finding her strength.
But her legs—like mine —are gone.

And oh, how I long to carry her across the finish line.

But carrying her—and my grandson—would kill me. We are not built to carry such heavy weight, and I have enough of my own.

So I must teach her how to move forward without legs.

The Fire in My Chest

It breaks something ancient in me to see the little girl inside her begging for the safety I cannot give.
She has her own child now, with the same pleading eyes.

And me—I am here at the end of autumn—sweeping the remnants of regret into winter’s funeral pyre.

At least I can tell her now:

You can finish the race without legs.
It will hurt.
It will take strength, and perseverance you don’t think you have.
But you have the power.

When you learn to love yourself with the ferocity you give your child—
when you become a tiger-mother to your own soul—
your life will bloom in ways you cannot imagine.

What I Know Now

I may have been blind, but I paid dearly for it.
It almost killed me.

But I survived.
And surviving makes me brave.

So I am finished:

Finished lamenting my failures.

Finished carrying others’ shadows.

Finished shrinking, fawning, pretending.

Finished ignoring jealousy, insecurity, and passive aggression masquerading as connection.

Finished letting anyone make me feel unsafe.

Most of all—
I am finished making myself small.

No anger.
No bitterness.
No lingering fight left in me.

Only peace.
Only light.
Only love.

The Golden Rule Rewritten

The golden rule is not about seeing the best in others.

It is about recognizing that my happiness does not depend on yours—
but it does depend on the energy I allow into my life.

I choose the energy of truth.
Of protection.
Of fierce tenderness.

I choose the light.

Legless, Still Moving

After decades of running from pain,
I have run my legs off.

So here I am—
legless, slow, steady, tortoise-hearted.

I am not in a race.
I have nothing left to prove.

I have already won—
because I am no longer angry or bitter.

And that, in itself,
is a miracle.

I’m here to enjoy the view,
maintain my balance,
and cross the finish line
in my own sacred time, knowing that my happiness is my responsibility. I refuse to allow another person to steal my peace.