A new understanding

Today is the first day of my new course. I have decided to study to be a nurse; I have decided that New Zealand really is not the place for me. I have family here, friends here, but I miss the brand new life which I carefully sculpted, spent a year doing so, a brand new family full of people who I adore as though we all have the same blood running through our veins, a happy life in Canada. I miss my life there, so much that at times since I have been back in New Zealand, I feel as though maybe I left my voice at Vancouver airport and I don’t know how to get it back without returning.

Upon returning I also discovered something about myself which I don’t think I ever would have if I had not escaped my life here for that whole year, if I had not had that year of safety. And that is that I am capable of changing my own life no matter what or who is standing right in the middle of my path. I was a feminist before I left New Zealand, I have read the books, I had very strong feelings and thoughts and opinions on such things, but I feel that now that I have really used my own strength as a woman to stand up and say enough. Walk out on everything I had ever known because I am better than that, I really truly understand what Feminism means to me, what it is.

I changed my life; I will never be stomped on like that again. Yes, maybe I will be hurt again, raped again, abused again, but I will not be defeated as I once was. I will not cry in the dark "why does this always happen to me?" I finally feel like one of the woman in all of those books I read, who finally said enough is ENOUGH. And I am proud of myself for doing it. And I am not ashamed to leave here for my own good once again. But not before I finish my education and take with me some of the tools I may need one day to help someone else move their own mountains, as you have all helped me to move mine.