The Cost of Leaving
When I left Illinois in 2007, I thought the hardest part was behind me.
I had packed the boxes, loaded the car, and driven north — two kids in the backseat, a trunk full of everything I owned, and a heart that wasn’t sure if it was breaking or healing.
I told myself this was freedom.
And in a way, it was.
But no one warns you that freedom comes with paperwork.
Back on the farm I grew up on, I was trying to hold my life together in my childhood room when the sheriff came to the door. He handed me the divorce papers filed in Illinois.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise — I had asked for the divorce. But seeing the papers in an officer’s hand hit me like a ton of bricks. My marriage wasn’t just ending; it was officially over.
Depression crept in hard. I lay in bed for days, letting my parents and family care for the kids. My dad finally opened the door, looked at me with that quiet strength of his, and reminded me — in his way — that life doesn’t stop here. That I had two kids who still needed me, and it was time to get up and keep moving.
That was him — my steady force, my firm cheerleader, the one who always believed I could get back up.
The first few months back in Minnesota were a blur of lawyers, legal fees, and long drives to Illinois. Every time the mail came, I flinched. Bills, motions, mediation notices — my mailbox became a stress trigger with a return address.
“It has been a tough day today, I got a letter from my lawyer stating I got court-ordered mediation… I’m so afraid he will file it then the court will order the kids back to Illinois.”
That fear was constant — this quiet panic that one legal technicality could undo everything I’d just fought to build.
Some nights, after the kids were asleep, I’d walk outside just to breathe.
The fields were quiet, except for the crickets and the wind moving through the trees.
Inside, the three of us shared my old childhood bedroom — one space, one life crammed together. Their toys on the floor, their laughter echoing off the same walls that once held my teenage dreams.
It was humbling and holy all at once.
There was love in that room — raw, loud, messy love — the kind that made survival possible.
I’d watch them sleep and think, This is why I left. This is who I’m doing it for.
And even on the nights I felt like I had nothing left, I knew that somehow, love was still holding us up.
When the divorce was finalized, there wasn’t a champagne toast or a symbolic bonfire of wedding photos.
No.
There was me — standing in the same yard I’d played in as a child, realizing I’d finally done the hardest thing I’d ever do: leave.
The cost of leaving had been everything —
my savings, my security, my certainty.
But it also gave me something no court could ever take away:
the right to rebuild — on my own terms.
And I did.
If you’ve ever had to fight for peace,
If you’ve ever left one life to save another,
If you’ve ever looked around and thought, “This isn’t where I thought I’d end up,” —
Maybe you’re right where you need to be.
With heart,
Rebecca
