The Decision

So I guess this has been coming for some time.  Maybe my entire life.  It's one of those things that is always in the back of my mind.  I have tried oh so hard to belong, to believe, to find somewhere I fit and I just haven't found that.  Take that back I did find it once, a long time ago, but that feels like a different life.  And it was everything that I thought it should be, but in time that was smashed not all of it, but a lot of it and my heart was broken.  People drifted and the people that held my hand and told me they would be there, were not.  My favorites have stayed and never wavered, but they are also far away.  This is something that I can not do on my own.  Believe me I have tried, and I just can not do it.  And oh I have tried to reach out, I have tried to get someone to come along side me and they just aren't available or not around.  People are busy,  people can't deal people just don't want to and I will not be broken by these people, any people anymore.

Do I still believe in God, I want to, oh I want to believe that .......truthfully I am not sure some days and other days I do, I think that I do ?  Here would be nice to have that person to call and ask questions and think what about this what about that ?  Someone I could express my doubt to that would understand  I could feel him once I knew he was present but that is gone.  You know all those songs that say you are never alone and I am his and he is mine.  NO I do not believe that.  I have asked women to be my mentors, and that has taken every ounce of courage that I have and things have fallen through.  I am the common denominator so I know it is me, just not sure why.  I can not be broken anymore, put myself out there to be alone.  Like I have always said better to be alone in your thoughts when no one knows them then to share those thoughts and still have no one there.

SO I will hold on to those that I love be grateful for those that showed me it was possible. be grateful for the times that I felt like I belonged and be grateful for even the smallest moments that people listened to my lack of faith.  I am more than sorry with all that.  I want to believe like some but I don't and I can not fake it.

I am not sure I know how to pray, never have really.  I sit , I think I send good thoughts, I wish good things for people,  I light candles and cry and feel for those that are hurting. Things are heavy and in my looking for the light it seems I am one that finds more heavy, and I won't do that.

It's not who I am to be something that I am not, I am crazy me.  I am a really good teacher.  I am a good mom, on most days I love with my whole heart.  I am kind and care and have passion about the world around me even on the days when it seems to be falling apart. I am not saying that I am turning my back on god and religion that is not it all.  I am saying that I am done asking for someone to walk beside me through it, I am done trying to fit when I know that I don't.  I am done looking for a place that fits whats in my heart and the things that I believe.  I believe in people I believe in kindness, I believe in the joy of nature those are the things that keep me going.

I will not pretend to be a part of a church that I just don't fit into who they are or what they believe.  I believe in good kind people.  I believe that all people should be happy I believe that if you love someone you have a right to live happily ever after together.  I believe that there are things that are done to people that are unforgivable, not all wrong doings are the same,  I believe in laughing and that the Dalai Llama is a man with more kindness than many can comprehend and he isn't going to heaven ?  But my father will ? I have a problem with that.

I think it was a friend in Colorado that made this ok with me. That lifted a veil that made me feel like there was a place for me. She was sharing her heart and talking about how heavy that she felt and she said that to deal with that she prays,  and automatically in my head I felt like I shouldn't be listening like someone how I didn't deserve to be there but then she kept going, saying praying is just what I do but you don't thats ok I know that we all need each other......WHAT.....it was ok that praying wasn't my way of dealing with the heaviness ?  A whole new world.  Thank you my friend for including me. I feel the heaviness all around me and we all do different things to deal with that, as we live life.  That is huge, and lifted a burden that no one person should have to carry. We should all do this together, reguardless of a certain belief its about doing this life together.  And for once I didn't feel like an outsider.

I heart your heart, oh I heart your heart. 

So good yet the heart hurts

I follow a blog called in others' words.  She is more than amazing and so wonderful she understands where someone like me has been and where they have yet to go.  She is more than amazing in so many ways.  I have sent her a few messages in the past and there is always that warm response letting me know that I am not alone and that things will be ok.  And I haven't been writing and I have wanted to so very much but the words wouldn't come, or the words I really wanted to say I wouldn't let my self say, so I have been in this crazy place.  Things are so good,  yet the heart still hurts.  I feel like i should write that over and over because that is what fits and I don't at all understand it.  Dare I even type the D word.  I hate it and never say it, people ask even doctor's and I say well maybe but if I am going to tell the truth yes its DEPRESSION. I mean maybe is that what is is ? And goodness its so very ugly and so very heavy.  It takes everything that I have to get out of bed in the morning.  There are days many days that I just want to curl up and nothing.  Everything I do takes an immense amount  of everything that I have. And that is more than sad.  There are so many good things, so many great things and then pieces of the past of me that are just so heavy.  Heavy is the only word that I have to describe it.  I hold everything inside myself lately.  I already have no nails but they are worse.  Nightmares are normal they have been worse, the evil vicious terrifying kind.  I want to believe in the things that people tell me and I won't let myself.  I don't know why; its good to be brave and courageous and all those things yet there is a shame and an embarrassment in that, that I have to understand.  There are days I seem to have peace and yet my body tells me otherwise.  I don't want to be in my own skin and what exactly does a person do with that.  There are many things to share and to tell and to explain and all  I hear is silence.  Things that its not fair for people to understand, fair for others to have to untangle for me. At this point I need more more help more listening more patience more love and where does a person find that ?  I could go the rest of my life living on the surface and in the end all that needs to be said would be unsaid and I would still feel that heavy.  So I am going to keep writing.  I will keep growing keep learning and hope that maybe this year will bring an end to the heaviness, if not an end at least some understanding for myself.  There has got to be a time for less hurt for this heart that keeps going. 

I once thought that it was church, and I was wrong It was for a time,  it was everything for a time, but I needed too much.  I left broken hearted and didn't understand.  I thought I found another, but something was missing that I couldn't explain I need someone to carry me in this process and whether others didn't understand that or couldn't it just didn't happen.  I wish them all the best but that just isn't a place for me.  I have said it before and people have argued and disagreed but really that is not the place for me.   

  You know I feel so other than and I want to feel so normal. I am pretty sure that there is somewhere I will make sense just not yet. I find people and places that are far away but I need that here in my everyday. Where my heart and feelings and views and weird quirks are taken as just who I am and not something to fix. My heart may always be bruised and others are going to have to be gentle, but maybe that is just me, just where I am in this life. I don't understand the places that I have been the things that have happened but I know in my bones I am in the right place and I have to find people that are willing to be in this place with me and not anything else. As Laura said you are where you are, there is more work that needs to be done.

I heart your heart.



  So I wrote this : and got this back.

Chat Conversation Start SAT 9:59AM Hello there me again I just love you and am grateful for your words!!!! Things are going more than great I teach special ed and love it, I just bought a house, my very own house, I have twelve year old twins that are my breathe they are truly awesome kids but you posted a picture the other day about heaviness and I burst into tears!!! Things are so good, better then they have been in a long time but this heaviness is crushing and I can't explain it! too full of truth but people don't want to hear the truth. People assume it was so long ago and shouldn't be having such an impact but oh my goodness it does. People say to let go and goodness I am so trying but there is so much. I promise that I am not meaning to sound whiny, that is not me at all. I just want to find some peace, things are so good and yet the nightmares come and the kind that you can't get out of even when you wake up. If things are so good why can't this ugly piece be just as gone. So frustrating!!! People get sick of it, I get that but then what do we do ?? I did the documentary thinking somehow it would be over it would make all that happened to me mean something and people are saying how brave and blah blah and when in the world will I let myself believe that , that surviving was a good thing and not a curse ? Sorry finally the words I just don't understand, things are so good and yet the heart hurts. Much Love thank you for seeing and hearing!!! SAT 11:09AM Oh, I so get it. I get looking around and thinking I have so much to be grateful for, there's just this one thing from so long ago- why can't that just be OVER? All I can tell you is what I have found to be true, that until you do the work, until you process your story and take it back, until you do the therapy/therapies in the areas where your trauma is still playing out, your abuse will still haunt you. And not for nothing, other people don't get to tell you to let go, or to get over it. Beyond inappropriate and way the hell over their pay grade. And if your intentions behind doing the documentary had to do with external things- regardless of how admirable they may have been- that is why it didn't have the effect you were hoping for. Don't tell your story because it might help someone, don't tell your story for praise or perception, tell your story because you deserve to tell your story- and that does not need to be publicly- that's not what we advocate, that's not necessarily right for everyone. Don't go into "all is lost" mode because you aren't where you think you should be, or where other people think you should be. You are where you are, and there's more work to be done. That's all. xo -Laura I heart your heart exactly where I am

Good Morning 2017

What a start to the year. I never made it to midnight but woke up to Vincent laughing and using his poppers out back,  I smiled and went back to sleep.  Many crazy dreams and not much peaceful sleep.  I stayed in bed wanting to have better dreams and then that just never happened.  Then I heard the birds singing outside and I smiled this is the beginning of a brand new year.



What a year that 2016 was so many things have happened that I never imagined. So many feelings that I never imagined.  Things are different.  There are so many things to write, so many things that are heavy that I don't know how to let go of.  That can be a scary place to be. Things are pretty close to perfect only I don't feel it.  And I don't know why.  I think that there is a huge part of me that is waiting for the other show to drop like somehow, this isn't real and things really aren't all this ok.  Things on the outside look amazing, I have this amazing house I love my job I love Vincent and Mariska they are a little moody but they are 12!! My mom and I are repairing our relationship  So many good things and yet,  something isn't right.  And I can't even put my finger on it to figure out what it is and make it better. There is just this plain heaviness, there are parts of me that feel I am all alone in the world.  Just the truth.  I haven't been writing even giving myself the time because I don't even know where to begin, there is a blender of thoughts in my head and I am, have been trying to sort them out and I think I get it, then another thought and another and then once again I have no clue.  Christmas was great, it seemed like it as here and gone in a flash.

We have a new president elect, that I don't believe in that I don't believe is good for our country, my kids ask questions and also can't understand.  Some things we may never understand.  I am hoping all good things for this upcoming year and I am worried.  They turn 13 oh my heart, that I am not sure that I am prepared for.  That terrifies me, the things I had to deal with the things they are still so young you know. A rough place to be. I honestly don't have a clue what this year is going to hold, I am excited and scared and hopeful and everything I want to figure out the heavy things that are holding me down and so all the things I never imagined, that is what I want for this year !   Because we all know I always keep going ! I don't know what is coming but I got stamina.  I heart your heart. We will see what the year holds.

Sia : The greatest 

Summer

I wish that I was writing more but it just isn't happening.  I am trying to figure out what it is that I feel There are so many new things happening that my brain is just often way more exhausted than I would like it to  to be, and I often don't have the time. Well I just don't take the time, I just don't take the time, there are is always floors to clean laundry to do,  counters and bedrooms to fix.  I busy myself a lot of the time, and don't give myself this space so I am really going to try because this is really more important for my heart, than a nap on the couch or cleaning whatever it is that needs to be done.

So many things are changing, I feel like I am coming into my own skin a little and that feels good.  Just a little not totally but that is completely different for me Making decisions that are right for me and not worrying about other people.  I ALWAYS worry about others. I have been deleting people on Facebook, that sounds so mean but really its not, its just that I want people that are involved in my life that care that are in my every day to know all the good things that are happening , that want good things for me.  Why keep those around that have hurt my heart ?  Those people are a  reminder of things that could have been once but are not Now,  its just the right thing for me.   I have been taking care of my needs even making a DR appointment. I know Texas may get a blizzard!

I think a turning point was when my favorite came to see my house.  My mom had been staying with me that week while I was teaching Summer School, and Vincent was taking his robotics class.  The last few months when no one was there she had really been helping. She had been kind and was listening and all things that I needed.  I could not tell her oh James is coming you have to go home.  It was a pull in my head,  she has been helping me out, I cant just send her home and then ask her to come back.  So I didn't and she stayed.  I am sure that James was shocked walking in given the relationship that my mother and I have had.  But I have softened some letting her back in I am still cautious, but it feels like its also the right thing to do.  I got to the point where I was done,  there was no more of me to give to her and she reached out and I decided that it was time.  She even asked , and said that she would leave, but if someone is a part of your everyday , that was just not something that I could do.  Would I have said more if she wasn't there probably but she was there and I was grateful, and I got to see my favorite not for very long but it was perfect and he got to see my house.   That was a really huge decision for me, and I truly feel that I made the right one.

Teaching Summer school was interesting I met some amazing people and in the end I am glad that I did it.  There were a few days that I wan't so sure,  there were some rough kids but when I really got the chance to work with those that just needed that extra help, I was all set.  I met some other amazing teachers and it was fun.

I stopped seeing, Matthew well I guess not officially but his health wasn't great and there were many missed appointments and it just wasn't what I needed, or what was working for me,  just one of those organic things that just happened, and I met someone who is everything kind and soft spoken.  He even does EMDR, which I am hoping will help with some of the intense flashbacks and nightmares.  It is not going to be easy at all!!  It's going to be really hard.  I am realizing that I don't like to stay connected that I am not present in my body a lot of the time and there are a lot of things that I am going to have to learn but its going to be worth it.  I am just keeping my fingers crossed everything will work out with my insurance and I can continue to see him, I think I can get to where I want to be with him.  He is a kind gentle soul that will help my heart as I continue with this life journey of mine.

Looking at houses is on the top of the list lately , since my mom lost her job.  She is getting older and I am not sure how she would be able to work and still paying all of her bills. Getting laid off at 63 is not good for anyone.  And things are going really well with us so we are looking at a place for all of us to live.  Then I would not have to worry about her, and she will not have to worry about a mortgage payment.  Its all a work in progress but I am thinking that its a good thing.  Amazing how things fall into place , leaving my perfect house now will not be easy, but there are things ahead that are amazing and exciting and I look forward to whats going to happen and how relationships will grow and change.

I go back to school Thursday and I can't believe it! But I am excited I miss my littles and I hope they had a wonderful Summer and are looking forward to an amazing year.

There was lots of netflix this Summer, lots of naps, lots of laughing and good things.  It was the most fabulous Summer that I have had in a very long time and oh it went by so very fast.  but looking ahead things are going to be awesome and I look forward to many new things new people and new life choices that right for my family ,

Much Love I heart your heart

If you follow my journey thank you, I am grateful, its going to be an amazing year !!!

Unfriending

Who ever thought I would be one of those people! One of those people that unfriends someone well yea that is me.  And I say that with  a smile, I am kind of proud of myself. Lately it seems my friends are dwindling in some areas and growing in others and I am totally ok with that.  I would rather have my own friends than someone else's friends that is where I am. It's nice deleting people that were always some one else' friends it just took me some time to figure that out.  I wanted them to be mine more than anything and I tried more than hard but if you have to force something then its not really meant to be;. Right?  So in this process the last few months I have begun to unfriend people .  First it was a person here or there that I no longer spoke to, then it was you know what,  these people are reminders of things that hurt, of people that weren't there, of people that were only around me because they were other peoples's friends and I was over it. They were people that were my friends because of association and that is not a friend at all.  I want my own people .  People that have an interest in me and my life, people that I have things in common with that I can share and be respected. People that do not try to put me in a box.

I am not the oh poor girl lets be her friend, Yea NO THANK YOU not interested.  If you are not going to be genuine then please don't bother.  There has been much ingenuousness in my life and I am over it if you care stick around, love me and all my craziness or don't.  I can not make people like me, make them listen or understand, make them hear me so it was time to say goodbye.  I do not wish them bad I just won't be fake. I am not even sure that I know all the ways that this will affect me.  I just can not do it anymore.  I will not be around people that I don't like. I will be polite and courteous but I will not be fake.  Those people that I have unfriended do not deserve to know all the great things that are happening in my life.  I don't want to be the topic of conversations that I am not a part of.  I can say that to unfriend a few people it hurt people that once help my hand and cried with me , then I became an inconvenience and was no longer contacted.  I can not do that.  I am at a point in this life I would rather have my few favorites that I know are there than hundreds that see me drowning and look the other way.

In many ways I am different , relationships, connections are different because I never really had them and I want them more. More than the average person I think, whatever that is!!  I want connection more than you can even imagine but I want the real kind.  The kind where well my house isn't perfect but come on in this is me.  I am not at all saying that I am perfect and I am sure that I have unintentionally hurt others but I will not cry with you be there then turn the other way, EVER EVER!!  It's not in my bones to do that.

I know that I talk about my favorites all the time and I have to say that for once I am not sorry.  Those people have been there, loved me, held me and cared for me.  Even my moments when I pushed them away, told them that I didn't want to be a pest or was not the most lovable they loved me.  I am sure that never again will I have favorites like them, but the life things that I have learned from them.  And often I try to push them back thinking why in the world would they want to be with me and they push back and they are there and they make time for me, how incredible is that!!!  It's more than amazing.  I am beyond grateful the things they  have taught me about myself, life,  friendships, such important things.  And these are people I don't talk to all the time, but they are there all the time and if they didn't want to be they very easily could fade away and they have never done that.  Oh I love them, so very very very much.  When they moved away I was terrified but in that I have grown stronger and the relationship has changed and become what it is today.

I was terrified unfriending people I mean come on I don't have many friends to begin with and here I am just clicking away. Click.....Click.....Click.......  But it was good for me so very good.  I want real friendships and if I just have a few that is totally ok, because the few that I have are the ones that totally matter.  So to my friends that have stuck around oh how I heart your heart I love you and and am more than grateful.

I heart your heart 

My Place : Anna, Texas I never imagined

I have wanted to write forever and have not given myself the time. It has been months and I have started many times but with packing moving and unpacking and working all the while time seems to escape me.  Today I just have to stop to be grateful for the place that I have found, the place I am in. There are so many things to be said to be shared to be kept secret.  Things that I never imagined, feelings I don't even understand.  I am still surrounded by boxes, there are pictures still to hang and there is a peace that I never imagined I would have.

I would visit other places looking for such a place, looking for a place to make me whole a place to make me feel complete, to make me feel like i belonged anywhere anywhere , and I have found that a few places and I often wondered well wow this feeling is here, is this  where I am meant to be ??

I found it in Colorado and thought that maybe one day that might be my place.  The things that I feel there my soft place to fall, my forever people even on my most annoying days, the place I am welcomed with all my weirdness and embraced. The place where I can laugh and cry and just be.  I love that place but its the people. Those are the people that made that place.  And I love them more than I love almost anything but being there is not my place because its my soft place my place to go when my heart needs to rest when my world is spinning, there everything stops and I get to be.  I can, cry and laugh and be quiet, I have space there.  I talk about people holding space and those amazing people that I love there hold space for me and I can not even begin to tell you all that means with words.

I found a place while I was in washing DC.  I felt whole I felt understood I felt listened to.  I felt pieces of me that I didn't know were there.  I again felt cared for and the people there made room for me.  I was welcomed with such open arms. My deepest darkest secrets were there and yet you would never know it.  I was given the gentlest kindness in the tears of others, and the softest touch to my check, that I will cherish forever.   I was given time, I was given safety I was given pieces of myself back.  Those were forever people, people that hold a place for me,  I in some crazy way touched a piece of their heart and they touched mine and that is the things that life is made from.  Those are the things that make a person whole.

The two places are places that I fit, that I belong, that I cherish but they aren't mine.  I would have been happy in those places,  oh so happy but the problem would be that I need my own space.  These places have people that hold space for me, that give me just what I need but I have to be able to find that on my own in my very own place.  If I went to those places, there would be a part of me that would want to hide in the safety and not shine in the light.  Oh I am not even sure that this makes sense only it so does!  I would be that person wanting others to fix the broken pieces to heal this wounded heart to care when there is no one else.  But really none of that can happen when you can't stand on your own two feet and do the things that need to be done.  Its just about a year ago that I was asked to leave a place that I thought was a safe place and my heart was broken.  People were mean,  people ignored, people pretended that everything was my fault. People wanted less than for me, and I coudln't understand when they knew my dreams.  It was a conversation feeling so less than, so unimportant, so uncared for, so thrown away and my forever person said what do you want ?  And I had an answer in the same breath.  I knew what I wanted I knew what I needed to do and I made it happen.  It felt more real than anything I could ever hope for.  And for the first time in I can't tell you how long I stood up for myself my family and we found the perfect house in my very own place :

Anna, Texas   

I have lost oh so many friends, or those that I truly thought were friends but I have gained so much more than I ever imagined.  This place far away was mine.  Everything about it was perfect and true and honest.  I was home, my home.  There were times I would cry my self to sleep hoping that I was doing the right thing, times I would sit in the back yard screaming at the trees, times I would sit , just sit.  I did what was right for me,  and it made a difference.  I mattered, what I needed and what I wanted mattered.  This was a place where there were no bad memories, there was no trauma here,  there was no violence, no hurt, no pain, no past, no flashbacks of houses that haunt my heart. Nope, this little city had my heart.  Here in this little town was me all graduated with a degree, had a job that I loved with my whole heart and for the first time in forever I did what was the best thing for me and Vincent and Mariska.  This was my place.  And a year ago I never imagined that I would have left that place to find even more amazing things.  Like my very own house my very own mortgage,  WOW.  I write that and fight tears.  I never imagined in a million years.  I would ever be writing sitting in my very own house where everything is mine.  No one can ever tell me that I am not wanted, that I am a burden, that I don't belong.  This place is mine and those that have loved and supported me are welcomed with open arms.  This place has more love than you can possibly imagine.  I have seen the darkest of dark days.  But today I am seeing the brightest of the bright.  I still wake up every day and look down the stairs amazed and in total disbelief I have fought to be where I am my entire life.  I have fought through school to do what I was meant to do; for that perfect job for the right place and the right people.  And I have found so much, I have found my own place.  And I hope that my own place will be that safe place for others.  I hope this will be a house that holds hope and holds space for others at just the right moment.  My place was always something so very far away , that I only imagined existed, something that I thought was only in my dreams.  But I am not dreaming its here.  It's here in Anna.  And I am sure that there are many more great things to come and amazing kind people to meet.  My heart is happy.  

I heart your heart. 

ALWAYS

Off the Record

So I am not sure where to begin really.  My heart is sad and I want to be proud and think wow I did this and look where I am things are ok ! But I don't I look at it and think, I am proud of myself. I think  wow, My hair, glad it was a good hair day but man I talk to much with my hands,  and cry oh my goodness I am such a cry baby.  I watch in awe of Tami and Jaime. They speak so well and so clear. They are speakers and do it so well. Me, I think oh my goodness I am such a mess, there were to many ugly cries going on.   And it all comes back, and I can remember getting home from that first report and hearing this song on in my car. I cried all the way home not remembering how I got there. Then I got home and stood there in my room, crying thinking  what in the world have I just done.  The room was spinning and I felt oh so small was I doing the right thing, With out a doubt I knew that I was but at what cost to myself.  I had no clue.

Jewel:  Hands

I got the email late Friday night from Val sending the link and   I froze.  I was terrified of seeing my story,  I was terrified of how I would see myself.  Emotions went flying everywhere and nowhere,   literally I froze,  things flooding my head,  the pictures of being little, my father, wearing his shirt, that look of innocence on my face,  it was real and maybe more real than it had ever been.  It stopped everything in its tracks and all I really wanted to do was go to DC and get a hug from Val and Neil.  I wanted to be in that hotel room and feel the power that I did that day with my story.  Those people in that room Jim, Val and Neil, MJ were literally holding me up, they were holding my heart in their hands.  I wanted more than anything just to be back in that room feeling so understood and supported.  Those people are my people because they get it,  they understand .  And I didn't watch the preview until later.  I went to bed nightmares every second, around 3 am I got up and watched a few minutes of it, and there was a feeling of numbness and I couldn't watch it all at once.  I was scared to watch,    these people were so amazing Tami was so well spoken and so strong,  Jaime, how he spoke,  you wanted to listen to him and hear what he had to say.  Me I watched but was in another space.  I went back to bed, not sleeping really, tossing and turning and watching a little at a time, bits and pieces.  I was between the nightmares, and awake.  I looked at my phone and there was a missed call from Val and a message, I am one that answers right away and yet I was still frozen. And another call, saying that she was worried about me and wanted to make sure that I was ok, I felt like she had my heart.  I was grateful, once again I was back on earth.  I listened to her message over and over and finally took a minute and answered her telling her how much that I loved her that it was amazing that I was a huge crybaby.  So much of me wanted to apologize,  I was the messy cry baby not strong and proud.

I was helping my mom pack, all day and just stayed busy, I want to apologize that I wasn't more, more proper, more I don't know better spoken that I felt like  , well I don't know really I am trying to figure out the feelings and I am not sure that I have a clue.  When you have grown up the way that I did, and then meet people like Val and Neil people who hear you and listen with their whole heart, who look at you and see past the hurt to really hold your heart I can not in words even tell you what that means.  When you are on your own from the time that your 5, with only a few sticking around to see you, truly see you it means more than words.  It means EVERYTHING.  I didn't get that until I was in my thirties, that's a long time to be alone, and when someone reaches out to you when you feel so awful you hold on for dear life.

When you see a part of your life in black and white like that, its all there right in front of you, and you can't turn away.  I can't turn away from those pictures, I can't pretend that this is for everyone else.  A part of this has to be for me.  To recover to heal, to find my voice in all that has happened to me.  Val helped give me my voice,  I see Off The Record and I think oh my goodness there are so many things to do, there are so many places that I need to visit there are so many words that I still need to speak, and I want to do more.  There is a part of me that wants to share it with everyone one who was there who helped me who listened Det plemmons, I am not sure what I would have done with out him, he was never doubtful just showed me the utmost kindness, Sam Schoenfeld who understood my need to protect and   wanted the same.  To people like Neil who fight for people like me, who see the injustice and want to make things different.  I feel like he saw the depth of the pain that day, and standing in front of that hotel, him touching my face and holding me, that is a moment that gave me years of safety that I never felt before.  People like Val who in going through her own hell wouldn't let it go and wanted to make it different for others.  Who reached out to me as a nobody and wanted to hear my story.  When I first emailed her her first words to me were how can I help ?  WHAT, how can you help, she didn't even know me but yet she saw my heart. you just by speaking by giving me a voice by listeneing you have helped beyond words.    She is a woman so strong and brave, and I long to be all the things that I se in her.  She is everything honest and true.  Oh I love these people.

I could't wait to see the end result and when it came to be I was terrified.  Its out there I can not deny the impact.  I can be ever so grateful for all those that have helped but I also have to hold my own heart and maybe that is the part I have been missing.  I am just so very sad in the documentary and I don't like that part.  I don't want to be sad, I don't want to be affected so maybe this is the next step.  This is out there a part of my life that I can't get back that I can do over, but that I can choice today to have a voice about and to make a difference for others.

I am sure there is a long road ahead of me,  I want things to change I want detectives to be different I want the system to change and I need to be a part of that, I want to be a part of that making things different.  I can't forget myself.  When I did this all those years ago I forgot about me , it wasn't important.  Today I have to be important and continue to make a difference if I feel that dread, and shame the rest of my life I will never find the things that I truly long for.  I have a feeling there is going to be a flood when those feelings come.  I am scared, terrified but I have a few forever people that are never going away and for them, they are my world, they are making things better for me and for so many others like me.

At this point, its not about everyone else , its about me and I am not comfortable in that place, but I have to if I am ever going achieve the dreams I hold in my head.  I have to if I am ever going to let go of that sad that I hold so tight.

Oh Goodness these people, I heart your heart.  I miss you more than words. 

My Person, 

The song I listened to on repeat while going through the entire court process, I feel like they help me, they were my snow on the sahara, they were there when I had nothing.  I will forever love them,  and I look forward to their safety, their loving arms, and ultimate kindness again. I heart your heart.