To the nine weekends that saved my life.

As a shy and uneducated 15 year old, I walk through the doors anticipating defeat. Nerves overwhelm me and I am barely able to speak. A few long and agonizing weeks later, I receive the news: it was good enough. I was good enough.

I restlessly prepare for weeks beforehand. Packing and unpacking. Deliberating on who I want to be. What I want others to see me as, and how to make them see me that way. Never quite right, but as right as I can get it.

Long drive. Good supper. Long drive. So afraid I could hardly breathe. No expectations. I don't even know if I want to be there. Confused. Frightened. Broken home, broken heart. Broken faith in self. Resisting the urge to slink away into the depths of my safe little bubble of darkness. Le others undergo judgment, just not me. Please God, not me.

Familiar faces. I breathe again. I am not completely alone in my fears, there are others with the same apprehensions. We sit together, stay together, none expressing anxieties, but all understanding them. Observing the more experienced and wondering how they could possibly appear so at ease when they are clearly as uncomfortable and anxious as we. They can't be that happy ... can they?

Until one approaches. Then another. Then yet another. And soon, arriving isn't as scary as it once was. Arriving has become my shelter, my saving grace, my redemption. And as time moves slowly on in its weary march, these strange new colleagues I've discovered become less and less frightening. I become accustomed to them. I begin to enjoy their company. And in time, a sentiment I swore I would never again allow: I trust them.

We connect. We relate to each other. These new friends and I, we are all going through the same journey, though some of us are at different point. Some are new, as I was in the beginning. Some have yet to discover the all-encompassing love and acceptance. Others have seen it, and are back to build on it. And yet other's hearts are shattering, knowing that their time in this family is shortly coming to an end.

As I return, time after time, I find myself falling deeper into the soft blanket of salvation. I notice the darkness dissipate from the hidden niches of my life. These friends have invaded all the corners of my heart and purged them of all negativity. I am a new creation.

To the nine weekends that saved my life.