I Wasn't Taught to Stay — Part Three

These next years? They’re the hardest to write. Not because the memories are fuzzy… but because they’re not.

These were the years that shaped the part of me I have tried to hide. The part I buried under shame, guilt, judgment, and resentment. The choices I made that inevitably made my life harder. The cycles I walked into, even though somewhere deep down… I knew better.

I’m not telling you this for pity. I’m telling it because I need to. Because stories like mine are rarely told without edits, apologies, or disclaimers. Because I’m not ashamed of surviving anymore.

This is not about blame. This is about clarity. This is about witnessing a life that was lived on fire… and lived anyway.

Home 16: Del Mar, CA — 1998 — 18 years

While I was galavanting with the Hawaii boy and trying to outrun my own unraveling, my mom went and got married. Quietly. Quickly. To a man who kept his drinking tucked just beneath the surface. We’d find out soon enough.

When it didn’t work out with the boy — because, of course, it didn’t — I moved in with my mother and her new husband. Back into a cramped two-bedroom apartment. They gave me the office. A room with no closet, no space cleared for me. He didn’t want to share, and I didn’t want to ask. I understand now. But at the time, it felt like another place I didn’t belong. Another move where I was more guest than daughter.

Home 17: Clairemont, CA — 1999 — 19 years

I got pregnant. With the worst possible candidate. He was cruel. Relentless. He screamed at me… things I won’t repeat here. Gaslit me until I didn’t recognize myself.

This is where I learned to scream back. Not with grace. With fury.

I cracked open one night under the pressure of it all… his words, his traumas, his fists pounding the walls with accusation. Something inside me shattered. And I never quite put it back together right.

This is the root of a lot of my rage. A seed of that uncontrollable fire. I’ve buried it. Minimized it. But it still smolders under the surface. Not too far under…

Home 18: Oceanside, CA — 2000

We tried to make it work for the baby. A little apartment in North County. She took her first steps there. I remember the way her little fingers curled into my palms. The weight of her body learning to trust the ground. I was trying to do the same.

Home 19: Carmel Valley, CA — 2001

It didn’t work out. I remember September 11th clearly. I was asleep when the first plane hit. But my daughter — bless her for waking early that day — led me to the television. I turned on PBS. Instead, I saw a building on fire. Then the second plane hit.

I ran into the bedroom to wake her dad. He screamed at me. Told me to “get the fuck out.” And that was it for me. I filed for divorce the next day. Yes, I’d married him. No, I wasn’t ready.

Home 20: Carmel Valley, CA — 2002 to 2004

We stayed in that area, but moved to a smaller complex. This was the first time I tried to build something stable. She learned to swim here. We watched hot air balloons from our street. It was the kind of neighborhood where you think maybe you’re safe. I wasn’t. Not really. But it was peaceful for a while.

Home 21: Oceanside, CA — 2005

I got pregnant again. Another man. Another attempt at security. But he wasn’t any more equipped than the last. We moved into a condo. It was quiet. I tried to play the role again — mother, partner, peacekeeper. But I was unraveling faster than I could patch myself together.

Home 22: Carlsbad, CA — 2006 to 2009

We found a big house in a beautiful community. It looked like we had it together. I started cooking. Decorating. I tried to be the mom I never had. Three kids now. One big house. One big lie.

He came home blackout drunk most nights. Five days a week, 4 a.m., stumbling in with the stench of alcohol and shame. He shoved me, pinned me down, raged while I shrank into the walls.

This is the house where I was accused of prostituting myself on Craigslist. Where I locked myself in the bedroom. Where he confessed his feelings for a cocktail waitress. This is the house I stopped sleeping.

Homes 23–25: Oceanside, Escondido, Oceanside — 2009–2013

He swore it was just a crush. I told him to leave. He moved in with her less than three weeks later.

I tried to start over. New house. Same ache. Spiraling.

I ran. Found a little house on two acres in the hills. It was meant to be healing. Solitude. But it was just hard. I still had to do the back-and-forth. Still had to hand over my kids, face the men who broke me, drive every day back into the mess I was trying to escape. It was quiet. But it wasn’t peace.

I moved back in with my mom. Spiraling. Survival. This is where I found plant medicine. Where we spent Friday nights by the pool with neighborhood friends. Where I started drinking regularly. I was trying to stay afloat. But I was starting to sink.

· · ·

There’s still more to come. More cities. More temporary addresses that tried to pass as home. The years I finally stopped running… and the ones where I ran the fastest. The years I tried to build stability, and the years I burned it all down. It’s where the spiral began to slow. Not stop, not yet. But it’s where the unwinding started. Where healing entered the picture, even if it had to smash its way in.

The chaos. The clarity. The coming home.

— AudraHealing out loud, so you don't have to heal in silence.