The Path That Became My Sanctuary

There is a walk that I used to do when I felt like I needed to crawl out of my skin, get out of the little shitty apartment I was living at, at the time, and breathe in some fresh air to try and feel something; anything. It was a walk that went along the river. It was fairly private. It was fairly isolated. And if you kept going along the path, you could venture out into a neighborhood of very impressively large homes and fancy cars parked in the drive. 

I would walk this path at least 2 times a day, if not more. Every time I felt like I couldn’t take the world, I was layering up and stepping outside. I didn’t even think. It just became default. I would walk the path until I either had to come back inside for work or until I could banish some of the panicked feelings that were living within. 

I lived close by and I fell into this path and this coping strategy when I left my first relationship. The 11 year relationship. The moving out of my home and changing my whole life transition I was undergoing. I had a lot of things to run away from, a lot of things to process, and a lot of demons that lived too close too much of the time. This path became such a peaceful place. It started as an escape. It turned into a sanctuary. 

It's funny how some places can just turn into that for you. Do you have paths that feel like safety? That turn into that feeling of home? This place was where I healed and survived one of the hardest 6 months of my life. 

That path became the place where my past person and I ended things. I invited him into this safe place of mine; because I needed safety in order to have that conversation. We sat on the benches by the river secluded in a bend in the path. Words were spoken with finality there. I stood up and walked over to a little mini path to shed escaping tears, unable to keep it in but not wanting anyone else to see. He had stood to the side and waited for me to whip them away and join him again as we walked back the way we had come. 

And the months after, I repeated our walk; retracing the steps we had taken as we talked through how after 11 years we were not the people that would be able to keep going for another 11. I often would sit on that bench and think about the decision we (I) made that day. I would process it, feel the sorrow of it, cry over it. And then, I would stand up and keep walking. It became a ritual of mine. 

Places bring such emotion to me. That walk and that path became a path of healing. It is full of memories of me picking myself back up through the heaviest of my storms. Every footstep still to this day feels like home. What a gift; places are to me. That such raw emotion and memories can live there. I feel such ties to the experiences and places I have been. 

These days I have found a new place; a new path where I find breathing a little easier as I am walking through such pain in my life. I am taking comfort in my surroundings; the deep breathe’s I am taking, the secluded peace of it all. It will become my new haven for as long as I need it. And I truly feel grateful for finding a place where my heart can just be. It can bleed; it can go numb; it can scream; it can hide; and it can slowly heal. 

This place is further away this time. I drive 20 minutes to get there. It is a park on the outskirts of the city. It is a massive park with a million trails. But the trail I take is the same. Always the same. It is a loop this time around. And it is in the thickness of the forest. The tree’s overhead, the valleys below. I find such immense comfort in feeling completely enveloped by the forest. It feels like a hug. Like I am being welcomed into the thicket. It is a beautiful place to completely fall apart over and over again. 

I hope one day, I am able to once again, come back to this place that I hold close to my chest and walk the path that I am currently walking multiple times a week and remember the pain and the healing. I hope one day to feel the healing. I hope one day I am able to walk this path with nothing but the memories of my pain instead of the emotion of still feeling it so overwhelmingly so. I hope one day I feel like I feel about my previous path - that I had such a beautiful place to turn to, but one I no longer need in the ways I did. It has just become a beautiful path with deep memories I will have for the rest of my life. It is where I found myself. It is where I healed. 

I want to feel healed again. I don’t feel close to that. So for now, I will lean on my sanctuary and keep putting one foot in front of the other.