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If I Could Love That Hard in the Wrong Place
“To love at all is to be vulnerable.”— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves I’ve looked back at it now—really looked.At how bad it was.At the different forms it took, the different ways it showed up. Some of the things are easy to name. You can see it when a mug smashes into the wall behind…
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Nine Days Away: Waiting, Fate, and the Space Between
Maya Angelou“Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.” I went to write this when it was ten days away.I started it — and then I didn’t finish.Now it’s nine.Time doesn’t feel linear right now. It feels fluid. Like in films where something disturbs time and everything ripples — a wave rising, slowing, hovering…
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The Comfort Zone Isn’t Comfort — It’s Survival
My brain was never designed for happiness.It was designed for survival. That’s why I still scan rooms.Why I choose corners when I can.Why I sit with my back to the wall. It’s why I still park my car facing down the driveway, angled away from the house — ready for a quick escape. Those instincts…
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Hogmanay to the Horizon: Reclaiming the Season, One Threshold at a Time
The Winter Solstice — Surviving the Longest Night Before Hogmanay.Before resolutions.Before the noise of a new year. There is the Winter Solstice. The longest night of the year. For thousands of years, people marked this moment because reaching it meant one undeniable thing: you survived the darkness. After the solstice, the days begin to lengthen—slowly,…
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Reclaiming Christmas After Domestic Violence
When the Season Is Still Haunted, but We Keep Going Anyway I still hate Christmas. That feels important to say — not because this year was a failure, but because honesty matters more than appearances. We did many things right this year.We tried hard.We made new memories.And yet, Christmas still carries ghosts. That is the…
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Living Between Sunrises and Bedtime Stories
The Rhythm of Dark Mornings and Ordinary Days I get up for work in the dark now. It has become my normal. There is something comforting about being alone in a warm, quiet house before the world stirs. The darkness and I have spent enough time together through years of insomnia that we feel like…
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When a Family Court Judge Invited My Rapist to Amend His Criminal Bail Conditions : How the System Betrayed Every Survivor
How a family-court recommendation tried to erase my bail protections and forced me to relive the trauma the criminal system was meant to prevent. Many of you know from my previous posts that I am involved in ongoing court matters. My own criminal case goes to trial early next year, and two of my children…
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Heading in the Right Direction: Fixing a Broken System, One Reform at a Time
When Prime Minister Mark Carney announced sweeping bail and sentencing reforms on 16th October, it felt—for the first time in a long time—like the Canadian justice system might finally be listening. For years, survivors of domestic violence, coercive control, and sexual assault have lived in fear while their abusers walked free under promises that were…
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Institutional Complicity and Systemic Harm: Silence Is Not Neutral
This week I have been on a mission.I have witnessed too much abuse, too many people turning blind eyes, saying nothing because they “don’t want to get involved.” Because they “don’t want to take sides.” But here is the truth:If you don’t choose a side, you have already chosen his.Silence is not neutral. Silence condones.When…
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The Calm Before the Storm?
After Monday’s court, the rest of this week slipped into quietness. It’s left me wondering—is this the calm before the storm, or is this what life is supposed to feel like? I’ve done a lot of waiting. Nothing new there. But there were bright moments too. My friend celebrated one year of finally having her…
