I was only one day out of the convent, but already I knew: there was no going back. My 19 months in the cloister had changed, healed, and marked me. Maybe you couldn’t see this mark, like you could my oddly cut hair and cheap new clothes. This transformation went far deeper than physical appearances.
Each new color and sound struck my senses with painful intensity. After 19 months of white walls, silence, and lowering my eyes, just standing in my mother’s kitchen was sending me into sensory overload.