There are seasons when life gets so loud, whispering stops working. You stop tiptoeing and walking on eggshells around your own truth. You stop shrinking to make other people comfortable. You stop pretending you're “fine” when your soul is over there banging pots, trying to be heard and have that hurt validated. At some point, you match the volume. That’s where I’ve been — healing OUT LOUD. Not in a reckless way, not in a messy way, but in a “my heart said testify” kind of way.

So here I am: rebuilding, relearning, re-everything. Washington State, bless its procedural little heart, makes you wait a full 90 days before you can even finalize a divorce. Raggedy. I could’ve been free by now, had my soon-to-be-ex not spent nine rounds avoiding the process server like it was tag at recess. So yes, I’m irritated.

I winced when my therapist—a doctor, mind you—named him a narcissist who love-bombed me at the beginning. You could’ve held my hand for that, sis.