"I Remember Peace"

- by Ryan

I remember this day like it was yesterday.

We weren’t rushing. We weren’t looking over our shoulders. We weren’t worried about who was calling or what chaos was waiting around the corner. We were just… breathing.

This photo was taken before everything started unraveling again—before I let old ghosts pull me back into the fire. Before I made choices that hurt the one person who never stopped believing in me. Before I gave in to pain I hadn’t dealt with yet.

But that day, by the water, standing barefoot on the red rock, I was just a man trying to show my wife what peace looked like. Not the fake kind we tell ourselves we’ve earned. The real kind. The kind you find when the noise in your head finally shuts up for a minute and lets your heart speak.

I wanted her to feel what I was feeling—calm, centered, almost human again. I didn’t grow up with peace. My peace had to be fought for. It had to be carved out of trauma and silence. So to be able to give her a piece of that, even if just for a moment, felt like magic to me.

But truth is, I was still running. Running from the pain that never really left me. From the memories of fists flying between my parents, the screaming, the chaos. From the guilt of reconnecting with a dad I thought I wanted something from. From the pressure of trying to be the man she saw in me while I still felt broken inside.

And I slipped. I fell back into the darkness I swore I left behind.

But that moment—this photo—it reminds me that peace is possible. I’ve lived it. I’ve breathed it in beside her. I’ve felt the world pause in her presence and give me space to imagine something better.

That’s what I’m fighting for now. Not just to come home—but to come home right. To come home whole. To create that peace again and protect it like hell. Because I saw what life could be when I was free from the noise. I showed her. And next time, I won’t just show it to her—I’ll live it with her, every damn day.