There are places we don’t choose,
but somehow—we arrive anyway.
MCCA was one of those for me.
I didn’t have money.
I didn’t have the kind of insurance that gets you in the door.
But somehow—I got in.
A grant? Maybe.
Divine intervention? Very possibly.
Or maybe it was just time.
I may never know what strings were pulled to open those doors.
But I was standing in front of them, and they were open.
And as I stepped through, I felt a breeze rush through the front of my body to the back—
as if something unseen was clearing space within me.
I let out a sigh I didn’t know I’d been holding,
and in that moment, I knew:
I was about to ask for help.
I was about to collapse.
And I did.
I unraveled in the presence of people who didn’t flinch.
I came undone in an environment that didn’t rush to fix me, but simply held me.
And that holding—that safety—became the womb of transformation.
MCCA didn’t “save” me.
It didn’t hand me a perfect life.
But it did offer something rare:
A place where I could stop pretending.
A place where I could stop running.
And from that place,
slowly, painfully, beautifully—
I began to come back together.