A turning point
There have been several times in my life where my sense of safety was shaken. This one was different.
I had already made changes. I had created distance between myself and my past. I had built something that was meant to feel steady — something that was supposed to be safe. And then something happened that disrupted that in a way I hadn’t expected.
I gave my statement that same day.
By Monday, I knew I needed to get out of town for a few days to settle myself. Before I left, I stopped at the RCMP detachment as a courtesy, just to let them know where I would be in case they needed to reach me. That stop turned into something else entirely.
I ended up sitting there for several hours with someone who listened, supported me, and believed me in a way I hadn’t experienced before — someone who seemed to understand me. I didn’t fully realize it at the time, but something in me had already started to shift.
A few days later, while I was away, I had a dream.
I was in the back of my dad’s old pickup truck, under the canopy, hidden among the things stored there. My grandson was with me, and my dog was with me. We were in a strip mall parking lot — open, exposed, nowhere to go.
My ex-husband was there.
I couldn’t see everything clearly, but I could feel him moving through the space. I caught glimpses — just enough to know he was close, just enough to know he was looking for us. There were people around. Some of them tried to help, but they hesitated. They were unsure, afraid.
Someone had called the RCMP.
No one came.
I couldn’t get out. Every direction felt watched. Every movement felt like it would give us away. And I wasn’t just trying to get away — I was trying to protect my grandson.
At some point, he was no longer with me. I don’t remember how it happened. I just knew he was safe.
But I wasn’t.
The chaos was still there. The pressure. The sense that I couldn’t get out.
And then I woke up.
I had to get up and go to the bathroom — something physical and ordinary — but when I went back to bed and fell asleep again, I went straight back into the same dream.
That had never happened to me before. Not like that. Not where I could leave and return and still be inside it.
But when I came back, something had changed.
Nothing around me was different. My ex-husband was still there. The space was still exposed.
But I had shifted.
I knew there was a way out. I hadn’t seen it before, but now I knew it was there — a gate at the back of the lot, hidden behind buildings. And this time, I wasn’t hiding. I was determined.
I moved toward it with purpose. Not panicked, not frantic — just focused. I found it. The sun was beating down, and I could feel the dry, dusty heat.
The gate was secured with a heavy cable, and I remember thinking that if I could just get through it, I would be free.
Then I felt someone behind me.
I didn’t turn around. I didn’t need to. I knew who it was — someone who had listened, who had supported me, who had believed me, someone who seemed to understand me.
Before anything else happened, my body softened.
I reached my hand back, and he placed the bolt cutters into it.
There were no instructions, no urgency — just a quiet, steady presence and a sense of you’ve got this. I nodded without thinking. I knew I did.
I moved my dog behind me and asked him to step back. I was certain the cable would snap when I cut it, that there would be force or recoil, something I would need to brace against.
But when I closed the cutters around it, that’s not what happened.
It released.
Quietly. Smoothly. Without resistance. The cable didn’t snap — it simply retracted out of the way.
There was no rush. No fear about what might be on the other side. Just a simple, steady knowing that I was free to go.
And I stepped through.
When I woke for good, what stayed with me wasn’t the fear — it was the feeling.
Warmth. Safety. Relief.
A full-body exhale I hadn’t realized I had been holding for a very long time. The feeling of being seen, of being believed, of someone having my back at exactly the moment it mattered.
And something even deeper than that — the understanding that I didn’t have to fight my way out. I could leave without harm.
In the days that followed, something in me shifted.
The urgency to keep living the way I had been was gone. In its place was a quiet certainty that things were going to be different. I didn’t have all the answers, and I didn’t know exactly what the path would look like, but I knew — in a way that didn’t need explanation — that I was no longer going to live like that.
Not long after, I committed fully to the work that would begin to change everything.
Looking back, I can see that dream for what it was. Not just a dream, but a moment where something in me understood — without needing explanation — that there was a way through, and that I was ready to take it.
Sometimes understanding doesn’t come when we want it to. It comes when something deeper in us is ready — when there is enough safety for it to finally land.
This was one of those moments. And so much has shifted since.