Before I start, take a few minutes to listen to this. In-video captions are mostly correct.

This audio served as one of a series of inspirations for starting this blog. I can’t remember the exact year it was when I first heard it, but it was well over fifteen years ago.

Even as I write this, I feel a bit of sadness again for the person I was back then. Having the mind to relate to it, yet having one excuse after another, in not developing the courage to speak my truth.

But in so much as writing the notes that catalyzed the first nine posts, I was finally learning how to tell that hurt child it was not all in vain. Though no one, including ourselves, deserved any form of DV, we, specifically my present and past selves, were now in a place to make something of those experiences.

To cut out the residual and blatant reminders of the war within us, and at any give house that we’re often forced to call “home.”

To remain accountable for each time we’ve hurt the ones we claimed to like and/or love. Both emotions inspired by the false idols of our upbringing.

To set boundaries and keep them strong, no matter the pressure.

And none of it is easy. Nothing worth it is.

And it’s safe to say that over three months of writing has helped me get over another important thing. That the people who project a positive image, yet will do all they can to silence the people that know who they are behind closed doors and inactive recording devices, deserve to be discussed.

More on that can be written later, but sticking with this topic, it’s helped me cope with many past events. Smile at and with the people meant to be in my life in place of those that, as the audio mentioned, made me feel alone. People that made me “feel so strange and ill at ease inside yourself.”

Much as I can say that many of us are too old for that, some elders stay there. People in our age ranged stay there.

When you learn how to leave them behind, you’ll breathe again, if not for the first time.

And if they try to resurface, it’s because they still think they know you.

Remind them in your rejection that they don’t, and never will again. All because you now know yourself.

You protect yourself better.

Most of all, you love yourself better.