I'M FALLING APART

I'm not okay. It's about time that I admit that I'm gasping for breath, desperately trying to stay above the water that is pulling me harder and harder to the bottom. I am about to sink. Into what? I don't know. I'm scared.
With the rest of my future sprawled in front of me, my head is down and my feet are solid. I'm neither moving backward nor forward. I am simply frozen, confused, lost, and helpless. The hands that promised to guide me, the ones who promised to stay beside me have all disappeared. The people that are predisposed to love me have left me here, without concern or care for my well-being.
They don't ask me how I'm doing. Although this question has yet to be spoken, here is my answer.
I'm not okay.
My classes are increasingly overwhelming me...to a point that I have studied and studied for long hours only to receive a test grade of a D. It's not my hard work or dedication that's the problem. This is the nature of college. I am, finally after all these years, realizing that the high school form of preparation for college failed me. It didn't provide me with the necessities and skills I now need in these difficult classes.
I live with a person that I despise to no end. Her rude manners, blatant disrespect for me, and her uncleanliness have left me standing at a cliff and I'm about to jump off. She has made it clear from the start that I am inferior to her, and that she is the alpha queen. She is in for a rude awakening. So, my dear parents who haven't actually asked me how I'm doing, I'm not okay. I dread coming back to Oshkosh for the sake that I am going to spend five days being treated horribly. I will endure hours and hours of disrespect. Kicking me while I'm down is her specialty. Yes, I could move out but no body even thinks to consider the implications of doing so. If just one person could sit down and just simply, purely listen to me...my ideas, my thoughts on the situation, maybe they would understand why I haven't looked into switching roommates.
Now there's my recent relationship status change. He is the one person who I can so far rely upon. When I'm feeling down, I know that I can go to him and he'll lend an ear. While it's still early in this relationship, and my anxiety leads me to daily question whether this is the type of relationship I want to be in, I am happy. However, this happiness also comes with some barriers. My anger and frustration for my family....could this be the cause of my happiness with him? Am I really happy with him? Or am I relieved to have an escape from the people in my life that don't ask me how my day is going?
I've always had friends surrounding me, laughing with me and crying with me all the same. I have never felt truly alone until this year. My friends have all transferred to schools throughout the state, far away so that I can't see them regularly. With school and work and other life distractions, it's difficult to even keep in touch with them on a weekly basis. I'm alone here at college, where I am supposed to be having the time of my life. I was once told that college are the quickest four years of your life. If that's the case, then I am relieved beyond all belief. In college, I have learned great life lessons but I am not enjoying the day to day bustle of being on campus as so many others claim to be. I'm not happy here. Why can't someone just ask me that? Why can't someone just listen to these complaints I have? I'm not happy here and I'm not happy with where my life is right now. I am lost and alone.
It's now me against the world and I'm afraid that I can no longer keep up with this horrible fight and struggle. Eventually, my muscles will weaken, my tears will stop falling, I will succumb tot he numbness that lurks, and I will have put down the sword. I will surrender to the fight, and give up. While this isn't a favorable outcome, this is the only result that I see happening unless a drastic change in my life occurs. What is a girl to do?

A PROCLAMATION TO A NEW ME

It's been almost six years that I've maintained a deep dark secret, unwilling and feeling unable to relinquish the burden on my shoulders. Caring friends and family offered their empathy, but could never actually hear the full story. I have been shunned into a tormenting silence and finally, I feel the strength, ability, and courage to unveil a darkened past that I have.
I'm blessed to say that I am not a victim, but a survivor. I survived a relationship built on the basis that I was to be a follower. I was to obey instructions given to me by someone who claimed he loved and cared for me. I was silenced at a fragile age when development and maturity were just reaching me. I was quieted and forbidden to have an opinion. What I thought no longer mattered to my friends and family, but more importantly, it didn't matter to me. I was a slave, by my innocent ability to trust someone who knew exactly how to manipulate me.
The pain that I felt, the bruises that I obtained, the nights of pure numbness are distant memories that still bring goose bumps to my skin and shivers down my back. I am haunted by the past that I permitted myself to have. I believed in a lie, when the truth was directly in front of my face. The only reason I ever pulled back and tried to better myself was for a savior. A guy who became one of my closest friends saved me, in a time when I didn't even realize I needed to be saved.
While you spat the cruel words and lifted your hands to me, I was most scared of myself. I couldn't get myself to leave. I didn't feel my worth or believed that there was better for me in the world. I was young, and naïve, and had been so carefree. I was now destroyed, damaged, hurt, used, abused.
Years later, I still don't discuss the details of this past that I have. I refuse to lay my every thought and emotion out for the world. I am scared to be so vulnerable again. No matter what anyone says to me, I know how evil someone can become and I am scared that the person who is truly genuine will be pushed away by my own fears and worries. My future could be so bright and is still so bright, but I don't know that I'll ever be strong enough to open my heart and eyes to what I could have. I am capable of disallowing the past from defining my future, but I don't know how to go about this. I am lost, in a sea of misery, and I am struggling.
Friends tell me all of the time that they are there for me, but I don't know how to be there for them. When they need me to open up about my past, I don't know how I can tear down my walls and let them in.
It's the figurative walls that I have built around me that keeps me from actually opening up to people. I'm an outgoing person, but I am not a welcoming person. While I have plenty of friends around me and plenty of people interested in creating a future with me, I am incapable of having their hopes and feelings become mutual with my own.
I'm a girl who needed to become a fighter in order for me to get away from him. Even though he is gone and the fight is over, I am still holding the spear, ready to utilize it. I'm still fighting, a fight that isn't even there.
But I'm done fighting. I'm done with the walls. It's well past time to trust the people who have proved their loyalty. It is time for me to prove my loyalty and trust to them. I owe my friends and family that much. I need to talk about my past so that I can move on and have a brighter future. It's time for me to be the strong, loving, outgoing, funny girl that I once was.
I will come back from my past and I will come out stronger than I ever was before.
Thank you to everyone who has stuck by my side, no matter how difficult it may have been at times. I do appreciate your never-ending love, support, encouragement, and friendship.
God bless.

I'M BROKEN.

Such a sweet girl, always smiling and taking advantage of each and every opportunity to meet someone new, make a new friend. She was carefree, seeking adventures and never worrying about anything too much. She was happy, beautiful, kind and crazy.

That girl is now gone and you are to blame. You could see in my eyes and my heart who I was and you permitted yourself to destroy me, for your own selfish reasons. I never intended to allow our relationship to last past summer, but you convinced me to stay and try to make things work. I was going through a new milestone of my life, my first year in college, and you knew I wanted to embrace the entire experience. You knew what my goals were and you manipulated me into thinking that following my dreams and enjoying myself was somehow equal to betraying you. You stole the precious time I had in my new adventure and you didn’t even think twice about it.

I tried. I tried so hard, every single day, every single minute. I waited by the phone when I should have been out with friends. I sat worrying and overthinking about our relationship and our issues while you ignored me.

I don’t think you even realize how much damage you caused. While you have begun a relationship with someone else, you have still reached out to me, trying to persuade me to grant you one more chance. How sick of an individual you are. After betraying me, you are already betraying someone else.

I am broken. I can’t open myself up and even though I try to let others in, I have built my walls too high. I am surrounded by water on an island. People are continuously paddling their way across the water to get to me, to get to know me. I’m disregarding them and I’m completely aware I’m doing so. I know I’m hurting them, and I don’t think they realize that I’m hurting myself, too.

When will my heart be healed again? When will my heart be able to open up to someone?

I don’t know.

These experiences, these mistakes, they’re all helping me become a better person. I’m strong and I’m capable of loving again. It’s time for me to stop allowing my fears to hold me back from life. It’s time to return to being the person I once was. It’s time to smile, genuinely smile and feel true happiness and love. It’s time to enjoy life, as best I can, while I can.

Life is too short to allow someone, especially someone like you, to hold me back. My wings are free and I’m ready to fly into my new adventure, my new chapter of my life.

I’m Sarah. I’ve been hurt before and I’m still hurting. I’m no longer going to allow my past to hold me back from the future. It’s time to be me, the best me that I can be.

MY CONFESSIONS

The true me is a soul that's been tortured with the painful reminders of a brutal past. Until recently, I have been stuck in the nightmares of who I used to be and what I used to permit myself to endure. My life lacked value years ago so much so that I didn't believe I was actually worth more than what I was getting. One man's abusive remarks led me to neglect the morals, values, and self-concept that I had previously held. I allowed myself to be a victim. But, I am not a victim. I am a survivor.
I confess that it was and still is my responsibility to obtain the respect that I deserve for myself. It was my duty to protect myself from the pain that he caused. Rather than hold true to myself, I allowed him to get inside my head and influence my every move. I became a slave to his unreasonable demands and I didn't even realize that I had lost sight of myself before it was too late.
I confess I fell into a false idea of love and convinced myself that I was happy. This is what I had longed for...a picture perfect relationship. I was supposed to be happy, right? "Maybe if I smile, the pain will go away..."
I confess that I love myself. I love the person who I am today. I am carefree, crazy, blessed, and above all, I am happy. I may not have all the confidence in the world and there are a million things I want to change about myself. I want to be skinnier, prettier, smarter, work harder, dream bigger, and love deeper. However, I am young. I'm still taking my first steps into adulthood and despite every mistake I make, I know that I am becoming the person I want to be. I may not have a million friends surrounding me, but I have enough genuine friends to support me, love me, and who are truly there when I need them to be. At the end of the day, I can fall asleep knowing that there will be a brighter tomorrow.
I confess that I am strong. No matter what situation I find myself in, I know that I am strong enough to not only get through it, but thrive. I am no longer weak and incapable of defending myself. I know my worth and I have the courage to stand up to anyone to fight for myself. For so long, I waited for him to fight for me. I didn't realize that I was the one who needed to rise up for myself.
These are my confessions. I confess that I make mistakes and that I can be wrong. I confess that I am not the perfect person in the world and that I'm flawless. I confess that that's okay though. I confess that I am who I am. These are the cards I was dealt and it's my duty to give myself the life, happiness, and love that I desire.

Soldier Returns Home

I'm blessed. I am healthy, happy, but most importantly, I'm complete again. No, my life isn't magically fixed and nothing in my life is perfect. It's the imperfection in my life that is what has me in a state of absolute bliss lately. I'm content with how wrong everything seems to be. My brother, after serving in the United States Army for the past nine years has officially returned. This time, there is no deadline or pressure. Every second is forced to be enjoyed as the time ticks away until we need to take him, once again, to the airport for an emotional, heartbreaking goodbye. He's home. For good. I'm blessed to say that after three deployments overseas and nine years of a roller coaster ride, my brother has returned safe and, for the most part, healthy and happy. Despite the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and possible severe back issues, his smile has still never faded and his laughter still fills a room.
I am so thankful that he is here with me. I understand that although I am elated to have him return safely, I know that there are still Army sisters out there who aren't as fortunate as me. It's for this reason that I remind myself everyday how blessed I really am. I don't and won't ever take for granted his presence.
Today, he's okay. Tomorrow, he may be upset, angry, recalling his traumatic experiences he has, but today, he's doing well.
To all those who have lost loved ones in the military, I want you to know how thankful I am for their ultimate sacrifice. My prayers and thoughts are with all those with loved ones in the military. Have faith and stay strong!
To those serving, I could never thank you enough for your sacrifices, your unwillingness to stop fighting, and your pride. You are not forgotten, nor will you ever be.
Thank you. God bless.

A Fear of Love

Am I considered a fool for believing the perfect arrangement of the sweet words you spoke to me? Am I considered the idiot for trusting that you could obtain my fragile heart?
In the peacefulness surrounding us in the middle of a summer night, I opened my mind and my hear to you, entrusting that I was putting my love and trust into someone who was doing the same to me. I was the brave, courageous one for allowing myself to open up and tear down the walls that I had worked so long to build up. I saw kindness in your eyes, that were so quickly willing and able to change to evil. Had I known then what I do now, I would not be the same damaged heart that I am now. I am difficult to get to know, because I have my walls so high. For fear of being hurt, I keep only a select few close to me. It's in these people that I find the most happiness from my life, but it's in this state that I am the most lonely.
Ideally, I am open to meeting new people and interested in learning just what can happen when the walls disappear. However, I am Rapunzel, stuck in a tower, too scared and too naïve of my own misery to realize that the grass can be greener on the other side.
Unless, I am wrong. Maybe I'm not as scared as I believe that I am. Maybe, rather than being afraid that it's worse outside the walls, maybe I am scared of the exact opposite. Maybe the deep, harsh truth is that I'm scared because I know it's better. I am more afraid to open my heart to greater things than of being scared that it won't be what I expect it to be.
It's in this miserable stage of my life that I am, once again. I, like many other females my age, have opened my heart to only have it shut down again...this time, with a stronger lock on it.
It was easy for me to convince myself that I am afraid of getting hurt, but I've been hurt before. I've been kicked down and I've gotten right back up again. I've become stronger. Why would I really fear this?
The only logical conclusion for this confusion and misery in my life that I can consider is that I'm afraid that I will find pure happiness. I'm not afraid that it'll end; I'm afraid that it will never end. The true commitment in someone that I long for is what is actually holding me back from embracing life and its crazy adventures.
I can't stay away from the desire of happiness forever. I will open my heart again and I will let someone into my life. I will unleash the secrets that I have held so dear to me.
One day, I will love again.

My Father aka My Hero

To my father with whom I love with the entirety of my heart.

Words don't have the ability to ever express to you how thankful I am to have you in my life. You have done more than just raise me to be who I am today. You work harder than any other person I have ever met in the world. Even after working a twelve hour day, you return home to sit in front of the TV in the living room still working hard until you decide to fall asleep and repeat the very next day. Your hard work ethic has inspired me to always give it my all in everyday life and never give up. When you were released from a previous job, you made the risky decision to start your own small business as an energy consultant. At the time, you had a middle school age son along with two younger children. Even though there was an evident chance of complete failure, you gambled and succeeded. You never gave up, you knew what you wanted, and you strived to achieve just that. In doing so, you not only provided for your family of five, but you taught us all an important lesson of going after a dream and not giving up.

When the entire world is collapsing around me and I feel kicked down to the ground, you offer a hand. You help me back to two feet and remind me that I am not done just yet with the fight. With your advice and encouragement, I stand back up and continue to fight for what I want.

Although I may not tell you every single day as I should, I hope you know that I love you. I really do appreciate all that you have done for the family, but most importantly for me. I am where I am today because of you. You always used to tell me that your goal was always to provide a better life for your children than you had. It's with this in mind that you made the decisions you did. I hope you know that it didn't go unnoticed. I see the struggles you face and I admire as you tackle each one.

I hope you know that everything I do in my life is in an effort to make you proud. I want to show you that I have learned from you and I have taken your advice into deep consideration. I want to provide for my future children what you have provided me with.

Dad, I love you so much and I hope that one day, my child will look at me the way that I look up to you. May you never go a day without seeing how appreciated and admired you are. But most importantly of all, I hope you know that you are the greatest father I could ever hope for. I'm so honored and blessed to have you as a positive male role model. I love you, Dad.



Strength, Power, and Love

Imagine yourself in a perfect moment of pure bliss, happiness, and joy with someone who you truly love and desire to spend the rest of your life with. You are innocent, vulnerable, especially after having relinquished all of the defenses you put against yourself in an effort to protect from any, if not all, negativity. Now, imagine that the person whom you have trusted more than anyone else has betrayed you. Maybe they lied, cheated, stole from you, etc. Regardless, you are now destroyed, left lying on the ground. Your desperate calls for help are ignored as he walks away, emotionless. You have given your heart to someone else who has destroyed it and broken it.
This is the pain that I have experienced far too many times. In truth, I have willingly subjected myself to this terrible treatment. I was naïve in believing that you could be the different man that I have been longing for. As it turned out, my eagerness to find happiness and love someone has just once again crumbled to the ground, leaving me broken and hopeless.
I don't understand how you can see how fragile my heart was. I gave it to you already damaged, but mended. You heard my darkest secrets, my painful, dark past, my great moments, everything. Yet, rather than showing me what a true man is, you showed me exactly what I already knew, further helping me believe that every man is like this. After going through so much, where am I supposed to gather hope to believe that someone could actually be different? I know I am not the only girl in the world who is fearful of every man I meet because I find myself waiting for them to betray me, rather than trying to see the good in them.
As a new year begins though, I want to remember the past, not forget it. I want to embrace my story because it's led me to be the person that I am today. I strive to achieve strength, power, and love this year. No matter what heartbreaks, disappointments, failures, and mistakes I may endure this year, I want to come out of each obstacle in my way with a smile on my face, strength in my heart, and hope for the future. I want to look at each of these failing moments as a chance for a lesson to be learned. I want to stand up for myself and obtain the power needed to make decisions for myself. In a seemingly selfish way, I want to put myself first and protect my heart from another disappointment. I am supposed to protect myself and I have failed, in many ways, to do so. This year, I want to gain power...the power to decide for myself what I want to do and the power to accept others into my life and expel those that don't appreciate, support, or help me in any way.
Lastly, I want to open my heart. I want to put aside my selfish instincts in this sense and help others who need it. I want to offer what little I do have and change someone else's day, week, month, or even their year. I want to make a difference in this world, or at the very least, I want to make a difference in someone else's world. I want to accept love and trust someone enough to not hurt me. I want to love those around me and show them just how much I appreciate having them in my life.
I am so blessed to have the people, things, and opportunities in my life that I do. This year, in 2015, I want to embrace every challenge with an open heart, strength, and the power to know that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. I am stronger, more powerful, and more capable of love than I think I am. This year will be different for me.