Hello.  I've been reading and thinking and contemplating about my life.  About all the things that have happened to me.  I'm currently a stay at home dog mom with little to no friends and all the time in the world.  Now that I've been spending so much time with myself, I've realized... I don't even know me all that well.  I think I got so caught up with my husband's dr. career that I've lost a sense of what I wanted to do with my own life.  And then searching through my own thoughts about what I want for myself have made me realize that I've never been able to pursue what I love because it was tainted by the people who were supposed to love me the most and those people ended up hurting me the most.  Imagine your sexual abuser writing you a note asking you to not to tell about what he did to you.  He says "Go use your beautiful voice and make something of yourself".  Singing was the only thing that brought me peace and then, it was another thing I loved, ruined.  My parents telling me if I didn't sing in church then I wasn't allowed to sing for school choir anymore.  The only thing at school I cared about was choir.  Ugh... I remember the next day crying in choir about it, practically invisible to everyone else in the room.  I went to college for music but fought my parents tooth and nail over it.  Eventually, they kicked me out of the home and took the car.  But that's a whole other story. 

I actually don't know where this first blog entry is going.  I just started typing and wow, do I have some grief towards my family.  Should probably try and get some of this off my chest. There's so much to tell. 

I don't want to feel this way towards them.  I'd love a normal family dynamic where I see them more than 2 days a year and it doesn't cause me stress.  I don't even know how to start with my sexual abuser.  (He's family too, unfortunately)  And now, I have nieces and nephews that I need to protect.  I couldn't imagine those kids feeling any percentage of how I felt at their age, but I can't even seem to get the courage to go to their birthday parties because being around family causes so much pain.  Whose pain do I fear more? My past pain causing me issues or the potential pain of sweet innocent children if they were ever treated like I was. 

Small steps... 

1) Opening myself up to strangers who have had similar issues as mine.  Check!

2) Reading books and getting more knowledge to understand how I feel and why I feel.  Check!

3) Reestablish relationships with safe family members.  ______  I'll work on that one some.  

4) Make a therapy appointment.  _______ I'll do that tomorrow. 

What else can I say?  

I am hopeful.  The more I think of what I'm going to do, the more I feel like I'm on the right path.  I've done the bare minimum for a long time, but I'm ready to start my life fully open no matter how old I am now.  It's not too late.  I know that.  I just have to stop looking at my past childhood self like I was cheated out of a happy normal life.  I mean, I was, but thinking that way doesn't help me now.  All the years in this negative, numb point of view has never helped me overcome my trauma.  I have had many happy memories, its just sometimes its hard to think of them when they get overwhelmed by the negative ones.  Even if the happy moments were few and far between, they become more and more precious to me because of their scarcity.  I just don't want to look back at everything at the end of life (hopefully a long time from now) and think "Wow. I was so caught up in my sadness, I missed out and overlooked some truly wonderful things." I don't want to be an old lady on my death bed and the first thing that comes to mind is how sad I still am about the all the bad things that happened to me.  Or all the things I missed out on doing because I was so afraid to attempt to do them and put myself out there.  I want to be the fire old lady that laughs loudly, makes bad jokes and can't remember what its like to have to lock your bedroom door at night or practice jumping out your bedroom window... just in case.  And I for sure want to be that safe adult that a child can come up to and know they can say anything and absolutely know that they are protected and cared for.  

I've got a lot of work ahead of me, but the glimpse of happiness drives me forward, unrelenting and always moving.  I need to get to work.