I dreamt of the youth pastor last night.

The man I fell in love with when I was 16. He taught me how to drive and he we sang Usher songs in the car.

He was the one where I lost myself, joy in my body, ownership of my sex.

The one who was cast out of the church, just like I was, and we both had to pick up the pieces of our lives for years after that.

Both plane crash survivors but the plane crash was our lives. He was the perpetrator and I was victim back then.

I haven't dreamt of him in a long time. I know why I am now.

Because it has been five years since I forgave him.

Five years since I first saw us as victims of a broken society, of broken religiosity, that couldn’t really help us.

They tried. Deeply. But no one really knew what to do. They did not know how to hold a powerful young sexual being, without making her feel wrong.

They didn’t know how to help him reform, other than to throw him out.

And I don’t blame them.

No one still knows what to do.

We live in a society that has yet to figure out how to prevent what is so prevalent:

Shadowed sexuality.

We do our best, we start powerful movements like #metoo, we reach out and care after it all has gone down.

But we all need deep healing. Not just the survivors, but the lawmakers, the perpetrators, the good meaning people shaking their heads and looking away.

And this is why I participated in #grabthebytheballot in Vermont. To hold my hands to the collective wound of all of us. Because if one of us is hurt, all of us are.