Be Brave Sooner
I remember having to decide if I was going to call the transition house. I feel so very grateful to this day that such a place even exists in our communities. Not all women are so fortunate, at such a time when I felt my most unfortunate.
The “Tea House” it was affectionately called.
My youngest child needed me. I had been away from her for way too long. I left her with her dad as I tried to get some distance and perspective to get healthy and find myself again.
I was starting all over and didn’t know what to do. I just knew my baby needed me. And, honestly, I needed to gather all my children around me again and get on with the recovery of my fractured life.
I read a news article about a transition house while I stayed with my parents. I realized that maybe they had a transition house where my baby girl was, and I bravely made the call to the intake number.
I got a call back immediately and I tear up even now thinking of the kindness I was shown. It’s been 20 years.
I was afraid to make that call and it ended up changing my life. I had nowhere to live, no income, no sense of self. The Tea House was a soft place to land, but I laugh now at how scared I was. I imagined rows of bare mattresses on a bare floor, prison-like. It was NOTHING like that. It was actually the nicest home I had ever lived in.
Be brave. Be brave sooner.
