This Is Where We Begin
You know those moments in life when you catch yourself standing next to something small, like the dirt where a post hole is about to go, and you realize you’re living a metaphor? That’s me this week. Standing on our land, boots grounded in thick earth, a camera in one hand. I’m watching a fence go up around True North. Not just any fence… my fence. Our fence. I do not think I fully grasped how profoundly this would affect me until I saw them putting the fence in the front yard up.
As I sat at my computer and worked tears started streaming down my face. I am finally safe, after all these years I feel safe. It’s a whole lot deeper than concrete, posts, and wire. As they dug into the ground, carving out deep, round hollows to hold each post, my heart brimmed with a million quiet revelations. That little hole in the dirt? It felt like a mirror into my own story. A glimpse into the excavation I’ve done within myself: peeling back layers of memory, untangling roots of pain, shoveling through the dark to make space for something strong.Before a post can stand tall, the ground must give way. I had to let the soil of my past be unsettled. I had to let the old ghosts rise and speak. I had to feel it all; grieve it, name it, bleed a little, actually a lot, before anything lasting could take root.
The fence going up around our home isn’t just a boundary. It’s a sacred symbol. A living, breathing testament that this space, this life; this ME is worth protecting. For those of you who’ve been walking alongside me, you know: my old life was chaos dressed up in calm. It looked beautiful on the outside. But the places that should have held safety held harm instead. Love came twisted and sharp-edged. And when love becomes a weapon, it rewires everything. Complex PTSD isn’t just a bruise on the heart, it reshapes your entire being. It doesn’t just scar. It settles into your bones. It teaches your nervous system that safety is a fairytale, a bedtime lie. You learn to breathe in shallow sips, not from anticipation, but from survival. Always scanning, every movement every tone holds something far greater than what it appears on the surface. Always waiting.
And rest? Rest becomes a luxury you can’t afford. So when I left, I didn’t just leave a place. I left a war zone. I started over, scraping my way up Maslow’s pyramid. First stop: the bottom rung. Physiological. Eat. Sleep. Breathe. I had to teach a starving body how to receive care again. Learning how to sleep without clutching the blankets, terrified and ready to defend my body even when asleep. I rarely wake in a start ready to defend, this has been a huge milestone. And once I found my footing there, I moved to the second level: Safety.
Y’all—that’s when the real work began. Safety isn’t just locks and alarms. For some of us, it’s a spiritual rewiring. It’s re-teaching our souls that love doesn’t have to hurt. That you’re allowed to have a door and a lock, and you’re not selfish for using it. That you’re allowed to say no. You are allowed to walk away. That privacy isn’t hiding, it’s healing. So yeah… I’ve chosen homes based on how easily I could guard the threshold. I measured the exits. I watched the shadows. I made sure that windows were always covered and no one could see me without me first seeing them.
And then we found this land. Our land. This big, beautiful, open breath of True North. No fences. No hedges. Just trees and sky and people who love me fiercely. And I thought, I hoped, that I was ready. That I’d done enough healing. That I didn’t need a physical boundary to feel safe anymore. But healing isn’t linear. You don’t graduate from trauma. You just learn to walk taller with it beside you. It becomes your teacher. As I sat across from my therapist, tears sliding down my cheeks, whispering that I felt like a failure. Like I was backpedaling. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “You’re not failing. You’re learning. You are choosing yourself. Again." She reminded me, gently but firmly, that when your history has taught you people can’t be trusted, it takes decades, not days, to believe otherwise. So no… wanting a fence doesn’t mean I don’t trust the love around me. It means I’m still building the kind of safety I need to bloom. And you know what? That’s okay.
So, with a heart full of grit and grace, we are building a fence. Not because we’re hiding, not out of fear or out of danger. This isn’t about keeping others out. It’s about drawing a sacred circle around what we love, what I love. This is my line in the sand. My yes and My no. Our home.
And of course… nothing I do is ever complete if it isn’t a bit extra. So yes, I tucked crystals into the fence line, smoky quartz for protection, rose quartz for love, and a few others just because they felt right in my hand. A little sparkle, a little spell-work. Along the posts, you’ll find hanging crystals too, catching the sun and dancing with wind, for beauty, for magic, for the reminder that protection can also be beautiful.
This fence says:
Here, is where we begin.
Here, where laughter echoes and barefoot children chase grasshoppers.
Where tears are met with open arms and not silence.
Where the soil remembers every story and holds them sacred.
Where love blooms free and easy.
Where arms are meant for hugging.
Where our words are gentle and meant for healing.
Where the ghosts of the past are quiet.
Where the ancestors take their place in the four corners of the land.
Their limbs stretch skyward, calling down protection like a prayer wrapped in thunder.
Their roots hold the ground firm beneath our feet, refusing to let us be scattered by the things that once tried to break us.
They remember why we build.
They bore witness to the cost.
And still, they guard us.
Our refuge
Where healing is not just possible, but sacred.
Where we are always safe.
And if your soul has ever whispered for something others did not understand, a quiet space, a sacred boundary, a door that only you hold the key to. Then hear this,
You are not too much.
You are not broken.
You are doing the sacred work of becoming whole. And healing, true, deep healing, gets to ask for what it needs. Even if what it needs… is a fence blessed by your own hands, and a prayer made of wire and gates.
To the ones who’ve built their boundaries with bare hands and holy breath, To the ones who turned heartbreak into harvest, I see you.
You are home now, you are safe,
Michelle — Gigi of True North
P.S And we couldn’t have done it without the steady hands and good hearts of Alpine Fencing Solutions. From the first phone call to the last post in the ground, they treated our land and our dream with such care. Jens and his team didn’t just show up to build a fence, they showed up with kindness, patience, and real craftsmanship. If you're in Southern Colorado and looking for someone who does more than just good work, someone who gets why it matters, reach out to Jens at Alpine Fencing Solutions: jens@alpinefencingsolutions.com or (719) 276-9212. Tell him the True North Family sent you.