Matching the Stories of my Past to the Memories in my Head

I graduated today. Not in the sense that one would normally consider. I didn't attend formal schooling and I didn't march in a ceremonial procession. I graduated from therapy.  It was a hard won achievement for me and I am immensely proud of myself. I finished up with Cognitive Processing Therapy and that was the hardest I've worked in a long time. But as I worked through the program and did (most of) what I was supposed to do, I began to truly wake up and look around with clearer vision and sharper hearing. My senses, both physical and spiritual, were alert and focused.  Digging out those stuck points was exhausting. I remember shaking and crying as I wrote my impact statement at the beginning. I remember the anger coursing through my body as the memory of endless hurts surged forward. For a long time, I have compared my healing to the villain, Hexxus, from the movie Fern Gully. (Super excited for the live action!) He is an entity that thrives on pollution. He is inky blac

I looked up the word ‘yellow’ the other day.  I found so many shades of yellow that they had been distinguished by words like  gold honey daffodil. I found words like fire and sand and champagne and lemon and sunbeam and I even found a song. Now imagine someone telling yellow that it’s ‘just yellow’. When yellow is a sunbeam and a daffodil and fire. When yellow is a song. Without yellow, we couldn’t make orange and we couldn’t create green and our world would be far less colourful because of it. Yellow’s true colours are not limited to one thing. And neither are yours. Some days you are dark and fiery and intense. Some days you are rich and bright and vibrant. Some days you are buttercups and dandelions and some days you are champagne and a song. And without you, someone’s life would be far less bright and far less beautiful.  You are you as  yellow is yellow. And the world needs you. Because, no matter what you think, you are not ‘just you’. You are so much more. 💛💛💛 Becky Hemsley

Couch Late at night Highly medicated. Just scrolling through Pinterest reading different Tumblr posts, and one caught my eye. Honors English was going to start reading Lord Of The Flies. Um... So, I did Lord Of The Flies in my freshman English class. It's kind of baffling that it's considered an honors class piece of literature. So I follow that path. I didn't do well in school. Mainly because if it didn't interest me, I didn't care, therefore I didn't try. Math, no thank you. Science, ew. Spanish, meh But oh! The Glories of English Class!!! Of Choir!!! Anything to do with reading or music, I was all in. My soul could soar unseen, where as in the "core"" classes, I was failing to even fly, therefore the subject of disdain and even ridicule from some of my teachers. Whoa... how'd we get here?!? Oh yeah, heh... Medicated. At any rate, perhaps, me not realizing that other people regarded certain things to be of a higher caliber in education, wasn

Sitting here tonight, my breath comes in short gasps.  My thoughts are racing so fast that it frequently derails itself, making me start over to try and straighten out that mess that is my head. I know how cracked I am... how splintered and down right broken I am. I am acutely aware of my shortcomings, of each character flaw that prevents me from being whole. I love you so mightily and so fiercely... it's almost as if I am trying to make up for all that I suppose I lack. My heart trembles at the idea of making my thoughts known and yet, I never stop trying to open up to you and tell you what is weighing heavily on me. And then my brain does that inevitable summersault of telling me that I talk too much and I should be more focused on you, rather than focused on straightening myself out.  And that is where the derailment begins.  Everything that I hear is taken literally. I don't know why, but every word is taken in and processed as though there is fault with me and I have to fi

My brain is overcome with the myriad of memories that have flooded in since the day Daddy passed. They have been pushing for several months, and while I managed to keep them at bay,  his passing hit me harder than I expected it to.  The first time I met Dad, I was just a tiny girl of 6 or so. He treated me like a princess. Giving me a room of my own and even carrying me in to bed that night. He was tender and kind and in retrospect, probably terrified. He had fallen in love with my mom, who came as a package deal with 4 tiny kids. He was the baby in his family and hadn't spent much time around small children, much less 4 at a time, all the time. I never heard Daddy raise his voice at my mom. While he certainly struggled with us 4, he came in our lives to see broken hearts that he simply wanted to heal with love.  Dad was so proud of all of us. He considered his step children to be his own and never treated us differently after his own biological kiddos came along. He saw in us thin

Rob and LeAnn got married this weekend. Rod and I took a long leisurely drive up through Stanley, then to Salmon for a visit with Summer and her crew, then up and over the mountains to Dillon. We passed through Wisdom and Jackson...  Can I just explain to you the absolute atrocity that is the mosquito in those towns??? These things are not only HUGE, they exist in never ending hoards that appear to want to pick you up and carry you off to feast on you until you breathe your last. Miserable little brutes! We spent the night at Dad's in Dillon. We got up and meandered around, slowly getting ready. I decided against the dress as it was windy and rainy, which equals COLD! Kim arrived and decided on jeans like me. It's nice to have a sister that sees the wisdom in my silliness. Hahaha Rod and I traveled up to Elliston, stopping for a smoke break. Candice spotted us, so she pulled in for a quick hello. She had Uncle Kenny and her grandson with her. They ultimately followed us up.  We