I have a right to my Story

This is so it.  I am growing into this and learning that I do have a right to my story.  Just because others are tired and can not handle the life that I have lived, for me it's all there is, its all I know. No where in the world does your lack of importance, your lack of help, your lack of seeing how my heart is still hurt mean that my story is unimportant and should be kept hidden.  I think these feelings began to surface the day that I had Jury Duty.  I had not been in a court house for some time, well really since I testified in Boston for Angela. Walking into that building was one of the hardest things i have had to do, I tried every excuse to get out of it believe me.  There were so many memories and feelings as I walked into that building and I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself.  I brought my book Know my Name By Chanel Miller , thinking somehow I could borrow some of her bravery for the day. Something to get me through, something to let me know that a lot of people have been through this process. A reminder that a most of us come out the other side.  Yes; we come out on the other side but in how many pieces ? That is the important question.

I feel like for me I came out in many pieces; many broken shattered, hurt pieces  all different pieces none the same.  I left the process feeling more than ashamed and that somehow I had failed.  I felt that everyone was looking at me through the entire process.  And everyone kept telling me I was just a witness.  That's all I was ; a witness.  There were all the on lookers; yet no one was stepping up to help.I think of all the people that were involved. All the people that asked the hard questions and heard my words, and judged each and every action. Very few really listened, very few understood my heart. 



I have gone through this life being ashamed of my story,  feeling like less of a person for the things that have happened.  I have been in the presence of people with barbed tongues that question and accused me of lying,  because no one would want to do that to me. I just wanted attention. I can tell you that phrase that comment has suck with me all these years later. I was the chubby unpopular kid who would want to do that?  I often think that if I was the pretty popular girl if I would have been treated any differently , I don't know, I will never know.  But I hear their words still all this time later and they are just as sharp if not more because today they are still so heavy.

  Because I wanted attention, I was the chubby unpopular girl! No one would want to do that to me. 



The things that people have said to me the words that they have spoken all have sunk in and I have lived by their words for so long.  Many people wanted me just to shut up , live with things and pretend that everything is ok. People have put a time limit on the things that have happened to me like some magic hourglass that my time of grieving, that my time to be sad has passed.  My friends I more than wish that there was a time frame, I wish there was an hour glass to end the sad and the rage and the hurt that is inside my very soul , but that is not how this works.  When your entire sense of who you are, and where you fit  in the world is attacked from your earliest memory there are going to be lasting effects.  There are going to be things that occur forever because of the things that have happened. There are going to be memories and feelings that will come, that I will acknowledge and then move on. That doesn't mean that I won't have joy, that I won't have happy.  It means that there will be times when others need to be gentle, there will be times, I just need to know your there. There will be times I still need my art journals because the things that I feel just don't have words , even to this day, all these years later. 

My stories are different than yours, my life journey is different and as you have every right to your story your feelings and beliefs. I have every right to my story my feelings and my beliefs.  As different as they might be or as similar as they might be, we all have out stories and there is no right or wrong.  They are just stories.  I want my story to mean something to make a difference.  I want my story, each part of it to see the light and eventually  become something that happened as a fact and  not another  broken piece of me.  Don't get me wrong there are still lots of broken pieces, but more pieces are healing coming together. I have a long way to go but damn I have come a long way.  And I am ready to keep fighting, finding my way to exactly where I belong.