“If These Walls Could Talk: Reclaiming the Space That Watched Me Break and Rise”

Lately, I’ve been realizing that one of the hardest things to process in my healing hasn’t been a relationship or a person—it’s been my home.

This house holds stories. It holds memories. It holds energy.

And lately, it’s been holding too much that still triggers me.

I built this house as a fresh start—my fresh start—in 2019, after my divorce from a near 18 year marriage. It was meant to be a place of peace, of pride, of stability for me and my kids.

I got to choose everything about it: the siding, the cabinets, the paint. Every detail had my fingerprint on it, and every step of building it was full of hope and excitement.

I remember walking through the empty frame of this house with such joy in my heart, dreaming of what it would become.

It wasn’t just four walls and a roof.

It was evidence that I could build something new again. That I was doing it. All by myself. That I was moving forward.

Around the same time, someone else entered my life too, and he saw this house from the beginning. He stood with me when the cabinets went in and saw my pure delight. He cheered with me when I unlocked the door for the first time.

And then… slowly… that very same person tainted the joy and the dream, and fractured everything.

What This House Witnessed

This house witnessed emotional chaos cloaked in charm.

It was the backdrop to love bombing, silent treatments, rage and tears behind closed doors, and so many confusing contradictions.

One minute I was adored. The next, I was invisible.

And my home? It became a mirror for that dissonance.

There were times it felt like the only love this house got was after I had broken down.

After a blow-up where he knew I was at my breaking point, there would be a burst of productivity—pressure-washing the porch, organizing the garage, hauling boxes into the attic. It felt like care… but it wasn’t really for me. It was performance. A clean house for the neighbors. A symbolic “everything’s fine” gesture. Love-bombing on grander display.

I had to collapse to be noticed.

I had to beg to be helped.

And my house saw and felt every bit of that.

It witnessed the highs.

It held the tension of the lows.

It absorbed every ounce of the trauma I was trying to hide—sometimes even from myself.

The Invisible Impact

What I didn’t realize, until recently, is how deeply I was still being triggered by this space that was supposed to be my peace.

I can walk into a room and feel inexplicably anxious.

I’d look at a corner and suddenly be flooded with memories of a fight, or a moment where I begged to be heard and wasn’t.

The walls held the echoes.

The air held the energy.

And it hit me:

I’ve been surviving inside a memory that no longer fits who I am.

This space—the one I once built with such pride—had become a reminder of everything that broke me.

And I am done living in that version of it.

Reclaiming My Home

So now? I’m reclaiming it.

Not in big, dramatic ways.

But in small, sacred, powerful ones.

• A new bath mat.

• A fresh shower curtain.

• Rearranging a room to feel different.

• Clearing out closets filled with heavy energy.

• Letting go of objects that carry old stories.

• Lighting candles not for aesthetics, but for energetic reset.

Every shift I make—no matter how tiny—is a reclamation.

Each drawer I organize is a declaration: this is mine again.

Each plant I water is a whisper: this space is alive again.

Each donation box is a release of what no longer needs to stay.

I’m not trying to “fix” the past.

I’m not pretending it didn’t happen.

I’m simply refusing to let it define the future.

This House and I—We’re Healing Together

This house didn’t hurt me.

It held me while I was being hurt.

And now, I want to hold it in return.

To love it.

To tend to it.

To sanctify it again.

Because this isn’t just the place where I broke.

It’s the place where I kept showing up.

Where I chose to stay.

Where I finally said: Enough.

This is where I rebuild—not just the space, but my relationship to it.

To myself.

To safety.

To sovereignty.

If these walls could talk?

They wouldn’t just tell you what happened. They’d tell you what I endured.

“She never stopped fighting for herself.”

“She turned chaos into clarity.”

“She made sacred what was once survival.”

“She stayed. She healed. She rose.”

And now, these walls don’t just hold my memories.

They hold my rebirth and rise from the ashes too!