I left my apartment with 7kg on my back and took the train to the airport. Less than a week ago I thought I’d be on the way to Europe to do a 16-day hike with my partner of two years. Now, I’m on my way alone, to spend a month in Greece healing a broken heart and an exhausted body.

One of the most beautiful parts of falling in love is falling in safety. For those of us who do not find ourselves feeling a deep sense of safety very often, when we do, our bodies may use this time to unravel and process some of the things it was not able to in the past. After almost 18 months of weekly panic attacks and dissociative episodes, and the sheer force I have expelled into healing as fast as I can, my body has had enough.

I am learning to navigate the rage I feel at the perpetrators from my childhood who make safe and loving relationships so difficult for me. But it’s hard. Most of the time I want to punch and scream and shout LET ME LOVE AND LIVE IN PEACE. But their ghosts are still here, standing at the doorway of my bedroom.

I feel compelled to share this because I think in the dialogue about the prevalence of sexual abuse, we fail to highlight the long-term and persistent impacts of this behaviour on the lives of survivors. Those who do not die at the hands of men suffer every day from the almosts. And everyone suffers differently.

I long for company and intimacy, but I feel fear in those spaces, and I don’t quite know how to navigate the density of that fear yet. So I’m going to spend the next little while leaning into slowness and the company of friends while I comb my way through each trigger, one by one. I have a little home by the big blue sea waiting for me upon my return, which I will fill with my books and treasures. I am calling it The Cocoon.

Until then, I will have a little break far from home.

This evening I’m writing to you from Seoul, South Korea. The Korean I learned as a child came in handy on the flight, and I befriended a retired Colonel from the South Korean army and her husband. I showed them where to plug in their headphones and they helped me with the correct sesame oil to chilli paste ratio in my inflight meal.

It’s been a long time since I spent a night on the floor of an airport. Twice have I found myself in an international airport with less than $1 in my bank account, bumming money for an entry Visa or a small chips from McDonalds. This time it’s different. I feel the cavern of the last decade stretch out before me. What a bizarre thing it is to get older.

So, I’m back. Loosely. Write to me while I’m away, will you? Tell me things. I will report back if anyone breaks out in ABBA songs or if I’ve befriended the local chef enough to get obscure seafood dishes off the menu. Stories will come and I promise to be far less depresso x