Goodbye Tweetheart.

Boy golly, we end where we began. In the quiet of a chilling landscape soon to be frozen in the stillness of winter. Advent is advancing once again. The darkness deepens even as we seek the light that never dims.

I joined “the conversation” in 2017 when my whispers turned to silent screams, when speaking was silence, and the silence was suffocating.

No one would listen to me, not even me. So my lips took to my fingertips and tentatively over the days, months and now years poured out pain. Atwood aptly said, “A word after a word after a word is power.”

On Twitter I slowly found the courage to arrange the alphabet of my own atrocity; it was a dictionary of destruction; a salacious scrabble board of brutality. It was then, a remains now, a story I could not have fabricated. Only truth is this bizarre.

Twit’s and their comrades called me all manner of evil things. I would shake as I read what they believed they knew of me. Suicide remained a companion in the shadows. I would hold vigil, watch closely, for any sign that the tide would turn, that the powers that be would see. The tide overtook. They remained blind.

Too many times a day I wrote the truth with the softness of my heart and the swiftness of a sword. Word after word resonated with my fellows and truth tellers. Others lent their power. Public pressure mounted. Other victims came forward long after he and all hope was dead and gone.

Resurrection comes in all forms — for me it looked like being finally believed.

So much of this played out on the public stage which has always been a source of deep ambivalence for me. I had a small digital footprint and now I was in the midst of a virtual volcano. This has never sat well with me.

Abuse obliterates choice, voice, and agency. Recovery collects it all and carries it back to you placing it in your broken arms. I fumbled along with you even as the fractures mended. It has been the best of times and the worst of times.

I am forever changed, some of you are too. Together we grew. Together we will continue to grow on. It is, however, time for me to go on.

I wrestle regularly with leaving this space. I came here to wrap words around suffering; to peel the grave clothes off of falsehood; to reveal the flesh of truth. I am satisfied I have achieved my objective. I feel I have stayed long and over much.

There are things that are for a season; a reason; a time. Letting go is overdue. I have stayed, in part, for love of you. I have stayed because I am afraid to fall “silent when my heart is speaking.” I have stayed because I am afraid people will once again speak for me, speak about me, and I will no longer have an amplified avenue for which to speak for myself.

Fear is no reason to stay in a space I have never loved and do not belong, though you I have loved and in many ways belong to. I am one of you. I am yours and you have become mine. I fear I will miss much if I go, but I fear I am missing more if I stay.

There is so much more to living than this and I want to pour myself into what life I have left and truly live it off the screen and unseen. My last two children have stretched into unrecognizable adolescents and I into a wisened woman in midlife. Much has been achieved, much remains to be experienced. There is more to life than surviving, somewhere within reasonable reach is thriving.

I will still write on this site and will find a pathway to receive communications as you might seek to reach out. I will still accept invitations to events that I can attend and still stay well. There we will have coffee — face to face; heart to heart; hope to hope.

In strength & solidarity,

Lori Anne