Why I Wrote The Trouble With Goodbye

In 2013, I took a little detour from the genre I’d been writing so that I could tell a story that was intensely personal to me. The Trouble With Goodbye is fiction. It’s not the story of my life. Not exactly. But there is so much of me in this book. I poured a lot of what I experienced during a very dark time in my life into this novel, and it was beautiful and difficult and cathartic and heartbreaking all at once.

When I was 23 years old, I decided to go on a backpacking trip across Europe. When I first started planning the trip I thought I’d be mostly going to hang out with my boyfriend of three years, an officer in the Army stationed in Germany. I was completely in love with him and honestly thought we’d get married someday. This trip was going to be about getting closer to him, visiting opera houses across Europe and meeting new people. I grew up in a very small town in Georgia all of my life and this was my big chance to see the world.

My boyfriend broke my heart in March and we broke up. I was devastated to the core, but when I picked myself up off the floor, I decided that I wasn’t going to let this ruin my trip to Europe. So I decided to go alone. I spent months planning every little detail, saving money, and getting excited about this new adventure in my life. I left in August for a three month trip backpacking across Europe.

I won’t go into all the details of what I experienced in my first month or so of the trip except to say that it was AMAZING. Those were some of the best days of my entire life. I took a two week German course in Frankfurt. I went to Amsterdam and met the coolest girl from Israel, who I then traveled with to Paris and Switzerland and Berlin. I was completely free. I remember sitting on a bench one day shortly after I arrived in Frankfurt thinking “No one in the world knows where I am at this very moment except me.” After growing up in a small town where everyone knows what everyone else is doing, this was the strangest, most amazing feeling in the world.

I met so many people when I was traveling. Since I was alone, it pushed me to introduce myself to anyone who looked to be about my age who was traveling on trains or staying in youth hostels. I had real adventures, and while my heart was still hurting from my breakup, I knew I was on the path to real happiness.

In September, after being in Europe for just over a month, I took a trip into the very magical city of Budapest, Hungary. WOW. It was the most beautiful place I’d ever been to in my life. I went there planning to stay a couple of days and ended up staying more than a week. I adored Budapest. I have this very clear memory of sitting on the steps in Heroes’ Square writing this in my journal.

“Today I realized why I needed to travel. In this city, I have found a part of myself.”

 

“I am ready to begin my life. I am growing stronger every day, and I know my soul is somehow preparing for the years ahead. Today, perhaps for the first time in my life, I am completely content. I want to taste life and see value in every day.”

 

I felt as though I had turned a corner in my life. As if I had discovered a part of myself that I’d always been searching for. A couple of weeks later, I went to Venice, Italy. I had been saving Italy for the last month of my trip because it was the country I had been looking forward to the most. I arrived September 27, 2000 and wrote this in my journal that afternoon.

My friend Reggie wrote to me from Tel Aviv saying you still won’t realize how much you’ve changed until you go home. Will everyone be able to see these changes? My truest wish is that I will be able to take all of this energy and all of these experiences and use them to propel forward. I refuse to go home and slip back into the same old person I was before. I want a new beginning. A new Sarra. Everything I’ve always wanted to be and to accomplish is right here within my grasp for the first time.

 

Reading those words brings tears to my eyes even now, more than 13 years later. I was so full of hope and change, but still had no idea what was coming.

That afternoon, at an internet cafe on the Rialto Bridge, I met two guys about my age who were in the Air Force. They were handsome and seemed fun and it had been ages since I’d hung out with American guys. The owner of the cafe knew them and told me I should go out with them and see the sights. I thought since they were American and military, I could trust them.

The details of how it happened aren’t important, but that night in Venice, I was raped by one of these American soldiers while the other did nothing to help me. It was the single most terrifying and traumatic event of my life. I was so incredibly alone and scared and I had no idea what to do. That night changed me forever.

I had a choice. I could either try to pretend it didn’t happen and keep going with my trip. I could go home early and keep it a secret. Or I could tell someone. I don’t judge anyone for the decision they make if they have gone through something like this. But I decided to tell. I thought the military would take care of me and help me, but it turns out the Air Force was only interested in taking care of their own. Again, I won’t go into the details, but the way I was treated by the Air Force officials was almost as traumatic as the event itself.

I came home a week or so later and felt incredibly alone. I had changed. I had been through this incredible experience between my trip and my time in Venice. Good and bad. The most beautiful time of my life and the most terrifying. How could anyone around me possibly understand that?

The military dropped my case, claiming insufficient evidence, and I was devastated. But nearly five years later, an attorney for the Air Force contacted me from Japan saying that another woman had been raped by the same man and would I testify against him? How could I say no? I ended up flying to Japan and telling my story. He was convicted of raping her and sentenced to eight years in Ft. Leavenworth prison. Her courage to step forward gave me a voice after all those years of being silenced and told that I was unimportant. I owe her everything.

Even now, more than 13 years later, what happened to me in Venice haunts me. At the same time, I know I’m stronger because of it. I know I love harder because of it. I wrote The Trouble With Goodbye as a way of touching on the subject of rape and how hard it can be to try to go home afterward and act like everything is okay. Like you’re somehow the same person you used to be. It’s impossible, really.

I also wanted to touch on the tragedy and hardship of being voiceless. So many women are raped on college campuses and in all kinds of horrible situations, but when they stand up and tell their story, they are ignored. Or worse. They’re told they were asking for it. Or that they shouldn’t have worn such provocative clothing. Or a million other excuses administration and law enforcement and family and friends come up with to explain away rape. No wonder so many women are terrified to even come forward. I can’t blame them one bit. There’s no safety net for women who come forward to tell their story, and it’s not fair.

Leigh Anne’s story isn’t my story. And Leigh Anne isn’t me. But at the same time, there is a piece of me in every heroine I write. There’s a piece of what I went through in The Trouble With Goodbye, and this book means more to me than you can know. I realize that not every reader will connect with this story or understand why this heroine acts the way she does, and that’s okay. What matters to me is that there are those of you out there who do understand. You get it because you’ve been there.

Remember that journal entry from Hungary? I wrote that on September 11, 2000. On September 11, 2013, I was lucky to snag a Bookbub feature on The Trouble With Goodbye. That day, I hit the Amazon Top 100 and the Barnes and Noble Top 10 for the first time in my life. A dream come true, really. And September 27, 2013 — exactly 13 years from that horrible day in Venice — my beautiful neighbor Carissa just happened to be visiting Venice with her husband. I believe all this could not have been a coincidence. I believe it was fate.

Carissa was kind enough to take a paperback copy of The Trouble With Goodbye to Venice with her. Inside, I wrote a very personal note, putting my feelings about love and loss and moving on out into the world. She spent a lot of time looking for the perfect location to leave it, finally choosing the corner of a bridge, water flowing underneath like time flowing by. It never stops, yet we keep moving forward. One foot after the other.

I thought about posting this back in September when this happened, but I had a hard time putting my thoughts down in words. I think I just needed some extra space from it. But today, I set the ebook of The Trouble With Goodbye as a free download at most retailers, hoping that by making it free, I could reach out to more readers. Besides, it just felt like time to tell a piece of my story.

I know I’ll never be able to stand up and say I’m healed or that I’m unaffected by what happened to me. It’s become a part of my own personal story and a part of my strength and struggle. My only hope is that by telling this story, other women who have been through something similar will know that they are not alone. Even if no one else in this world knows what you went through, there are those of us who understand.