Maybe this time

 My entire life people have pretended that everything was fine, we were all one happy family.  I can remember being maybe 5 or 6 and taking my father to the airport and on the way home saying to my mom "I wish that it was just the three of us and she patted my leg and said but we are a family.  And I felt so small and sank in the front seat of our car, yes we were a family, but to me my family was a nightmare.  We have never ever talked about things, she has never asked, and she sees me and pretends that everything is ok. Only nothing is ok, and very far from it. I am drowning.  My heart hurts, a lot of the time and I smile, try to make it better even pretend that I am fine but I am not.  Because very few people have heard me and really listened.  If some of the people that are around today were around when I was young, things would be different but they were not and my life was very different. I was left to fend for myself, and did the best that I could, some days that wasn't enough. Some days it still isn't.

I am working out the details of getting to travel to DC in May and tell my story, which is more than amazing and totally terrifying.  If you know me at all you know that I just want to fade in, I don't like attention, I don't like to be noticed, and yet I am going to share my story and am going to make a difference and am going to keep speaking until people start doing things different. I want to be acknowledged and I want my story to make a difference to change things, to change attitudes.  Until we are not ignored, until we are acknowledged and heard. I truly feel like this is going to make a difference to people and beyond that; this means so very much to me.  This is truly going to be a new beginning.   This is something I am doing for my own heart,my own soul something that I need to do, something that is pulling on my heart, something that I want to do. Sometimes I hide behind my blog, hide behind my smile,hide behind the dishes, the fixing of the pillows and I am overwhelmed and exhausted. This is going to be the most real true honest thing I have done in a very long time. I am going to be heard.  I am going to be seen. And I will not be quiet.

I have asked my children not to say anything to people exspecially my mother and Vincent did just that yesterday, and it broke my heart.  He doesn't undestand the implication he doesn't understand the pain and the hurt that runs so deep.  He didn't seem to care, he was in one of his moods and was talking to hear himself talk.  I was really upset, I don't want her to know I don't want her to be a part.  Maybe the fear of her hating me even more is more than real. And I asked him if he told her what it was about?  I have only told them its about when I went through the court system with Bob.  And his comment was "well I know that Bob sexually assaulted you, Right?  I said yes and turned away and melted he just kept talking.  My heart is breaking, those words coming out of  his mouth, those words that he doesn't undrstand that cut me like a knife, I was devastated. Ths is one I am alone in, there is no manuel for this.

No one saw me growing up, no one noticed, no one helped, no one stood up for me, no one did a thing. Often today its the same thing, though I am not that five year old anymore, thank goodness. I am a close to 40 year old woman that should be doing things differently, and I am desperatley trying. Only that four year old, that 10 year old that 13 year old is screaming, dying still waiting to be acknowledged.  She is waiting  for the world to stop and acknowledge the pain that she endured, which is a task even I can't or don't often do . It hurts to much, and I fear implosion of my heart. I was left on my own to take care of everything.  I can remember thinking I just wanted the world to slow down and acknowledge what had happned to me, how I was changed,  how I was hurt how I would never be the same again, and yet the world keeps going. Doing this, this time I am not on my own, and this is going to be life changing, I am hoping that I will see myself different, see myself in a different light, a courageous brave light; see that the things I have done that  have made a diffeence.  This time I am hoping that if even for a few days the world slows down so I can acknowledge what needs to be acknowledged and I  can feel heard.  Maybe acknowledge that little girl that went through so much, that is drowning today maybe just maybe I can save her. Maybe just maybe I can save me.

I heart your heart.