My marriage had ended, in part, because I had a problem with pornography.

To be clear: he wanted to look at it, and I had a problem with that. This difference in perspective would eventually be described by others as “something you could have worked through.”

I disagree.

My marriage is the other reason I know I can do ANYTHING for a year and a half.

I did not announce my departure to many. I cut and ran. No dramatic speeches. No group text. Just quiet extraction.

Which meant I had to do the logistical walk of shame: redirecting packages, changing passwords, reclaiming my life one forgotten account at a time. Nothing says “fresh start” like realizing your ex still has access to your Netflix.

I started reconnecting with people.

Amber told me—very seriously—that divorce was a last resort, and that I probably should have given it more time. Several months later, when I reached out again, she was horrified and insisted she’d never said that.

Which means either she forgot, or I hallucinated it during what I’ll generously call a stressful period.

Cami was wonderful.

Megan went to TJ in the divorce and cut all contact with me.

Billings reached out—now married, baby on the way—because of course he was. I was happy for him.

Mission friends resurfaced. Georgia contacts checked in. Everyone wanted an update, and I had no idea how to summarize my life without sounding like a country song sung too earnestly.

So. I sent emails like this:

Hello friend, I hope you are having a lovely holiday season.
What did you get for Christmas?
I got lots of movies, some new clothing, and a divorce.

Just sliding that in there like it was a scented candle.

Festive. Seasonal. Devastating.

I was doing shockingly well, which in retrospect should have worried me. I hadn’t had thirty emotional breakdowns yet, and I was very proud of that. I credited my ministering angels.

A therapist—had I had one—would have called it dissociation and billed me accordingly.

I had moved in with my brother Jason and his wife Estela, which turned out to be the softest landing I could have imagined. Their house was warm. The food was incredible. I laughed. I slept. I felt something dangerously close to safe.

After a couple of months, I finally emailed TJ about the money he’d promised me.

I expected a sentence.

I received a novella.

It opened with:
“I wondered if I’d ever hear from you, and when I do it’s just about money…”

Yes, Timothy. That is how owing someone works.

He followed this with several paragraphs of grief, confusion, and injury claims. Apparently, leaving an abusive marriage was very rude of me, and he was deeply hurt that I hadn’t checked in to see how he was holding up.

I responded with the truth. That he had pressured and cornered me into marriage. That I had been miserable, depressed, and suicidal. That no, I did not want to be friends. Or friendly. Or spiritually adjacent.

His replies ricocheted wildly:

Do you even care about me?
Why are you so cold?
Were we ever even friends?
Maybe you owe me money?
Pilot training is exhausting.
Also, I’m giving my modem to the Bishop.

It was like being yelled at by a man who’d combined a breakup letter, a testimony meeting, and a TED Talk titled Why This Is Your Fault.

Eventually, he remembered the agreement. He offered to pay me back in installments—$250 a month—framed generously as him “helping me out.”

I took it. Because freedom sometimes comes in monthly payments.

Living with Jason came with a few unspoken rules.
Much better ones than I’d lived with before.

One: Jason cooked. And when Jason cooked, you showed up hungry and grateful. This was not optional.

Two: Estela controlled the television remote. However, she would often put on a movie and promptly fall asleep, leaving me and Jason watching uncomfortable romance scenes alone together—at which point one or both of us would suddenly remember we had somewhere else we urgently needed to be.

Three: no one asked too many questions about why I was awake at 2 a.m. reorganizing a bookshelf or staring into the fridge like it might offer guidance.

This was a house where odd behavior was met not with interrogation, but with snacks.

There was no tension about how long I was staying. No calendar on the fridge with a silent countdown. No passive-aggressive, “So… any plans?” hovering in the air. I existed there without justification. I cleaned up after myself. I folded into their life like I’d always been meant to be there, which was both comforting and slightly destabilizing. I kept waiting for the catch. There wasn’t one.

Jason never pried. He asked how work was. He asked if I wanted seconds. He asked if I’d seen his keys. Estela filled in the rest with warmth—inside jokes, shared movie quotes, laughing so hard we had to rewind because we missed entire scenes. She treated me not like a guest, not like a charity case, maybe like a slightly feral housecat who needed to be reintroduced to normal human interaction.

Slowly, without ceremony, my nervous system unclenched.

I slept. I ate. I laughed loudly. I took up space. I learned that doors could close without slamming, that raised voices didn’t automatically mean danger, that silence could just be… silence. The house did not require vigilance. No one was monitoring my phone. No one was tracking my moods. No one needed me to be smaller, quieter, or more agreeable.

It turns out, this is what safety feels like.

The first time I met Estela, years ago, Jason had taken me to pick her up to go somewhere, and I was determined to make a good impression. So, when Jason accidentally closed the door of his Blazer on my ankle—not once, but twice, because apparently the first slam lacked commitment—I made no noise. None. I sat in the backseat with silent, pained tears streaming down my face while trying to make pleasant small talk with Estela. He still mocks me for that to this day.

While we lived together, tears still flowed—but they were always accompanied by uncontrollable laughter.

We had this habit of eating dinner downstairs in the dark, sitting around the coffee table while watching a show. One night, while cleaning up our dishes, I felt like something had fallen into my cleavage. I reached down my shirt and pulled out… an entire handful of cauliflower. The laughter lasted for days. And I have been laughed at about it for years.

It was an absurd amount of food to be smuggling down there.

Another time, Estela and I were heading upstairs after watching a movie. It must have been one of the goofier films in our rotation – Nacho Libre, or Kung Pow – because as we went to head upstairs she gave me a playful punch to the stomach—light, friendly—and I immediately let out a cartoonishly loud fart. She froze, horrified, and then collapsed onto the floor in a fit of laughter so intense she couldn’t stand up for several minutes. And the “who who who” laugh she adopted when she was really losing control.

(Years later she had the AUDACITY to tell her young son that farts weren’t funny. For shame.)

It was a very, very good time.

Living with Jason and Estela was full of fun, laughter, spicy food, and the kind of overwhelming comfort that made me feel not just welcome, but expected. I’d never been comfortable staying in anyone else’s home before, so this was basically a miracle.

But even good times have an expiration date. When I finally found another affordable place to live and told Jason I’d be moving out, he looked almost hurt… until he remembered he would no longer have to deal with my stupid, drooling cat. Albert had horrified them, and their cat Flaco long enough.

I left behind my nice wool area rug as a thank you (and because I was allergic to it).

And I moved out of his home after a residency of nine months.