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I knew that.

But it was time to go.

I had two weeks left before my due date, and as hard as I knew it was going to be, I had to return to The Hill.

I wanted to be close to him.

That hadn't changed in the past five months.

But what had changed was my mindset.

I had figured out how to cope – how to manage my pain.

The life I was sure I would never want to be a part of again jumpstarted in my heart the day our baby kicked inside of me.

No words could describe the emotions that had battered through me when I felt that tiny fluttering, that as the weeks progressed transformed into harder thumps and jabs.

Every time the baby kicked, I imagined it washimgiving me a gentle nudge, telling me to get back up. To rise up from the ashes of my burnt-out heart andlive.

During my stay at Grandma's, I found myself listening to a lot of Lana Del Ray's earlier music. The words in her songs, the melancholy lyrics,spoketo me. I downloaded every single one of her songs on my phone and listened to them constantly until I knew every single song by heart.Blue JeansandNational Anthem Monologuewere my favorites – the two songs that completely shredded my heart.

I used music to express myself, and I channeled my pain onto the page, writing darker and deeper than ever before.

I wasn’t sure if I would ever publish another book.

But I wasn’t writing for anyone other than me.

Several hundred thousand words of my personal breakdown were captured on paper and safely stored away on my computer.

My grandmother had given me a safe haven to heal, and grieve, and then piece myself back together again.

And while I felt like I was close to crumbling at any given moment, I waslivingagain.

I was talking and listening and holding down actual conversations with people.

When my family called me, I answered the phone.

When they text me, I responded.

I was doing that, and it was huge progress.

I'd even spoken to my mother a couple of times.

The conversations were short and vague, but I had healed enough to offer her some semblance of forgiveness.

In truth, I had done all the healing I could here.

Now, I had to make the leap back into the real world.

My world.

And that was in Boulder, Colorado.

"I'm ready to go home," I told my grandmother.

And then I wrapped my arms around her small frame and thanked her for helping me put myself back together.

"Are you going to stay at that big ole house your Daddy bought you?" Grandma asked, smiling affectionately at me.

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