Uncommon Legend

Safe Space

I have no safe space, or at least that’s how I feel sometimes.

I find myself in such feelings and emotions when I reach my limit. This can be monthly, weekly, or, if we’re honest, daily. I find myself wanting to share myself with others, but I often retract back as quickly as sending the smoke flare. I say, yes, something was wrong, but I’m okay now. Lies. 

I find myself wanting to tell my peers, family,  friends, and even my wife the deepest longings of my heart and how I want to feel love. But I don’t. Why is that? Possibly because the world and sometimes even my job works, I am seen as secondary, and everything and everyone else is primary. Albert can only have what’s left. 

Honestly, I have felt this way most of my life, except when I was a kid. There was this one safe space I could run to, and without fail, I’d feel at peace, my grandma. Dorothy Jean (Walker) Williams taught me how to find peace, and she was my safe space. 

She was my everything for the first 7ish years of my childhood. She was my personal chef, limo driver (even if I was always fighting for the front seat, lol), cheerleader, disciplinarian, teacher, and most importantly, my best friend. In seasons like these, I genuinely miss her. She was the person I’d go to for everything, but when I was about eleven years old. Everything changed. Grandma was no longer my safe space, but instead, I was hers. 

I distinctly remember being worried about grandma when I would go to school. I would wonder, is she okay? Is she eating? Will she be there when I get back home? When I was in the seventh grade, she was diagnosed with cancer. I knew the time remaining with her would be short, but I wanted to make the most of it. I asked to go to grandma’s house on the weekends rather than hanging out with friends. I wanted my last days with Grandma to be special.

When she went into surgery, I remember being so worried I was sick. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. I remember being overjoyed when they removed all the colon cancer – HOORAY! However, this was a gentle reprieve for what would come just a few years later. 

I remember going to school one day in March and feeling somber like something was off. As my dad picked me up from school, I knew it. She was gone. My safe space was gone. I remember dragging through the next six months, hoping to get to the other side of grief. 

Years later, I have come to terms with her death, and like most mature Christians, I have hope in the resurrection to come. All that being said, although I lost the person that was my safe space, I learned to cope using other (healthy) methods. I found my love for fitness, writing, and podcasting to beca my safe spaces. These are the places I run to, where I meet God, and I am just myself; I let my walls down and sit in them.

I’m not sure if you’re Christian or even want to be. However, I know we ALL need a safe space or even people to go to when things get rough. My grandma was mine because, through all those years together, she taught me how to be at peace and look forward to the other side of any trouble I was in. She would always say to me,

 “Now, son, you need to know how you’ll fight that bear (the world) because it is a scary place, and if you’re not careful, it will eat you alive. You’ve gotta know how to fight it and how to win..” 

Those words rang true because although she may not be where I ran to, she always prepared me for when this day would come. 

So, I guess my final thought to you is a set of questions: 

What’s your safe space? How will you fight the bear (pain, fear, stress,  anxiety, etc..)? How can you lean into people, places, and things and let joy in again?