Starting Fresh

My goals for this upcoming year and the months ahead:

Number 1. (Long term)

Work on my state of mind. Let myself face all the memories I hide from. Understand and move on. Try to sort through the trauma.

Number 2.

Build confidence. A goal everyone has, yet seems so unattainable. I hope to wake up every morning feeling ready for the day ahead and with no regrets.

Number 3.

Get closer to my sisters. They're all I have and everything I need to achieve my goals. I hope the two of them can get closer to each other as close as I am to each of them individually. Even though they are so far apart in age.

Number 4.

Act on my passions. As I read Dear John, Savannah's quote stuck out: "Passion is passion. It's the excitement between the tedious spaces, and it doesn't matter where it's directed...It can be coins or sports or politics or horses or music or faith...the saddest people I've ever met in life are the ones who don't care deeply about anything at all."

While my passions may have always been there, I want to take action. I plan on volunteering at Duke Hospital for teens and becoming a camp counselor at summer camps for overweight adolescents and teens. I hope to also get accepted to DukeEngage in New Orleans to assist with the public health programs.

Number 5.

Minimize the number of break downs I have. I've always had this tendency to survive...just keep going and going...lately I just keep crashing. If I work on number 1 of my goals, hopefully this goal will be reached.

Number 6.

Make sleep a priority. It really messes you up. I speak from about three years of experience.

Number 7.

Building friendships. Stop letting my past and present struggles hinder my friendships. Spend more time with people.

Number 8.

Strengthen my back. So I do some of my physical therapy, but I slack off on the most important, least enjoyable parts...swimming and abs. I know the more I feel at night, the more I've been slacking. It's time focus on my health.

Number 9.

Practice making decisions. Anything from what to eat to what to wear, to what classes to take. It's about time to pick a major and soon will be time to decide more important things. I am the most indecisive I have ever been.

Number 10.

Enjoy college and life.

I've always had a problem with this one, being a little too serious as a child, as a teen, and especially more now after everything happened. I keep forgetting that I am still young and deserve to live a little, as my older sister would tell me.

And...

Keep track of my emotions...more often...

Holding On

Why is that we hold on to the people that hurt us the worst? I can't figure out whether it's the need to feel loved and cared for or whether that person really means something...

Sometimes the thoughts of running and hiding in the master bedroom to get away from you fly through my mind, climbing out the backyard window, jumping over the fence and running to school, my escape...the place I threw all my heart into...

Sometimes all the hurt you brought me and those around me fill me with anger and tears, things that take me out of character...

Sometimes I cannot explain the abandonment, the accusations, the abuse...the pain. Every day memories of you drown me in my own world. My eyes puffy and swollen from thinking of the past..

Maybe I just want a parent.  Someone to love me unconditionally in a way that only parents can.  But you will never be that parent. 

Why do I pity you? Why does it matter that you're healthy? Why do I care...?

Why am wishing you've changed, when I know it will only lead to more and more disappointment...

It's Time...

So many people have asked me how I made it through everything. How I was able to see all that, feel all that and do so well. How I was doing so well.

For the first time in the past four years, I've realized that I can't just pick up the phone and call parents. I've realized that there are memories deep within me that I haven't shared with a single soul. I've realized that I have fears I've never thought of. For the first time in so long, I feel like I'm being woken up.

Describing the way I felt in high school to someone, she worded perfectly what I was trying to say...it's like when an animal has run and run from its predator but has been captured. About to be eaten alive, the animal shuts down...he doesn't want to feel the incisors of his massive predator digging deep into his flesh...the animal stops "being there" in a way...stops..feeling...

I have very little actual recollection from high school. Every time someone asks me about it...I just know that I had a wonderful support system, both teachers and peers that kept me going day to day...but actual memories, I yearn to recall...

If I didn't have facebook pictures from Homecoming, prom, graduation, I don't know if I would even know what went on.  

It's like I lived in a haze, making it through day to day, just..being...

I thought I was fine. I didn't actually think of the happenings around me...I cried, I feared, I struggled, I felt...but I didn't actually feel...I never took the time to absorb...just ups and downs and ups and downs...until today.

It's like I realized for the first time today so many things that I had never taken the time to think about....and...

I realized...that I'm not really ok...

Not yet, at least...

I think it's time to start working on my recovery...for a change...