I regretted yesterday’s blog post as soon as I hit “publish.” Part of me needed to say all that out loud, to share an unfiltered view of my life right now and see how it felt to throw up my hands and say, “I’m done.” But, instead of an ending, I’m hoping I found the gift that comes with hitting rock bottom: solid ground.

I know that if I stop writing, I’ll only succeed in creating one more fragment of myself that’s locked away from air and light. Stifling parts of myself is how I got here in the first place and I don’t want to stop talking to you like this. It’s only I when share the good, the bad, and the ugly of myself that I am known, and nothing is more healing than feeling known.

The parallels between my personal life and the problems with my house aren’t lost on me. I’ve known something was wrong with at least part of my home’s foundation for a long time. I just avoided looking into it for fear of what I’d find and what it would cost to repair it. Some problems were hinted at in our home inspection, before we bought the house, but other discoveries are so outlandish it’s a miracle my house is still standing. We have three more weeks until the repair work can begin. Until then, the foundation expert gently advised, “just don’t let your kids rough house or run around in your house.”

So, as difficult and costly as the work will be, my house and I will spend the month of October stripping away all that no longer serves us (including mold and mildew that are literally making my family ill). We will remove the short-cuts, jerry-rigged solutions, and other cobbled together crutches we’ve used for the last two decades and add properly built supports to our foundation. Most important, we will focus on creating a safe space to not just live, but flourish – a solid floor and solid ground, where we can stand without fear.