“So long you’ve journeyed, hiding your face from the wind. Wondering if your broken heart will ever hope again. I know it seems like all your dreams have been buried somewhere on the way. But I can hear a new beginning calling your name.”

Throughout my life I have learned countless lessons from my mother. I’ve learned how to sew on a button, survive in the kitchen, and what it means to be loyal. Yet, one of the simplest, most valuable lessons I ever learned from her was a festering wound hurts more to clean than a fresh one. Over a year and a half ago I was tripped and scraped my emotional knees, but instead of running to my mom and having her clean and kiss it to make it all better like I did when I was little, I hid my wounds from the world. I was ashamed of what had happened and when I did tell a few people I received two responses… “move on and get over it” and “this is why I avoid such situations”. Part of me hoped that people would look at me and see that I was hurting, and the other part was determined not to let a single person’s actions wound me so deeply. Just as my mom had always taught me… I can’t control someone else’s actions, but I could control my reactions.

For the past year I have been pretending I was in control. Pretending that my soul didn’t ache and that this was just a speed bump in the journey of my life. I was lying to myself because the truth was by pretending nothing was the matter I was letting this wound grow infected and fester in my heart. I had dropped my journey’s compass, and even if most of the world didn’t notice that I was lost, I was. But beyond just being lost, I refused to tell anyone I was wandering. It was as if I had gotten food poisoning from my favorite restaurant but was too loyal to its owners to tell anyone that I had gotten sick there and was too scared to eat there or at any other restaurant again. As wrong as it was I think I felt I was to blame for ordering the dish that made me sick. So I stayed hungry and silent for far too long.

Then out of the blue within the span of hours on Saturday two of the wisest women I know asked me how I was dealing with ‘eating out’ after what had happened at ‘my favorite restaurant’, and it was like a dam burst within me. You see, the thing about a festering wound is if you leave it long enough when you finally pick that scab all of the grossness that’s been building up inside rushes out. For the first time in a long time I was forced to really look at what I was pretending not to feel and before I could stop, I was confessing that I was scared and unsure of where I belonged. Finally, I was thoroughly cleaning my wound.

I wish I could tell you that after some emotional alcohol wipes and hydrogen peroxide everything got better, but that’s just not the case. While no one expected me to eat at my old favorite restaurant again, I had been starving and needed to eat somewhere. So the next day I prepared to go ‘eat’ like I had my whole life except it had never felt this difficult or lonely before. My go-to support team for situations like this (and an endless supply of hugs) were all out of town, so this leg of the journey was mine to travel alone. It might seem silly to some but I fought back the tears the entire way to the new ‘restaurant’. Facing your past fears and hurts is never easy and just because I was beginning to heal didn’t mean that I wasn’t still in pain. It took what seemed like the strength of a hundred men to take that first step of faith and get out of the car, walk inside, and sit down alone. Despite the fact that just being there felt more like home than I had felt in months, it was still a struggle, until an old friend walked up behind me, gave me a hug, and asked me to move out of my lonely pew and come sit beside her.

Even though the first step is usually the hardest to take, healing doesn’t magically happen overnight or because you pretend it does. It’s an uphill battle of staying emotionally clean and checking those old wounds for signs of new infection. Just like the times when I fell as a kid, I’m sure this part of my journey will eventually leave a scar. But a scar reminding me of the strength I found in forgiving and moving on is much easier to carry than a wound filled with lingering guilt, self-lies, and hidden shame. With my compass in hand, the journey continues, but hopefully from now on, I’ll remember exactly how right mom always is.

“Go on and join the dance. And take the chance. Let your heart dare to believe again…”