When do you know...

That you're ok?

That you can stop tasting the blood in your mouth -that you can stop feeling the weight of someone gripping your arms?

Is it when the bruises fade?  Or when you can laugh again?

I want so badly to stop talking about ME.  To not have questions or "should have done's" hurled at me; to stop thinking about seventeen seconds of my life. 

And I think I've reached that.  I just want to laugh again.  I want to pick up the pieces of what is done, and arrange them into a puzzle that adds up into a better picture for me.  Move forward, ever forward.

I spent the week in Utah, for work, and for the entire plane ride -- all four hours -- I spent most of it staring at a single spot on the seat back in front of me.  "I think you're in shock," my best friend had said to me gently the day before.

When the plane landed, I realized she was right.

When I got there, I threw myself into my work.  I needed to, in order to run an important meeting a few days later, so I escaped into that.  I swam; I ran; I read.  I think I did some healing, staring at those Rocky Mountains in the distant, so different from the view I see in my daily.

I came home on Friday night, and woke up Saturday to a stomach bug.  Was it the shock of being back home?  Was I really sick?  I don't know -- but I barely left my couch all weekend, but luckily, had a good friend with me for most of it.

My best friend and I are meeting in West Virginia this weekend, and camping out.  "We will get back to the land!" I proclaimed tonight.  She's bringing her kids, and I'm bringing Oreos.  "Don't worry," she said - "We'll have plenty of time to talk."

I answered that honestly -I am done talking.  I want to stop talking about all of this, and just be.  I want to be fully in the moment, to let her be with her kids and let me be with God as I attempt to pray with a sky over me that I can look at and see stars.  And we will all sleep in a tent, too close to one another, and we'll kick each other as we turn over, looking for comfort.

We will hike, and we will roast marshmellows.

I will walk in a creek, and I will remember what it feels like to come home.