Ok, I can see now that looking through my high school journal last night was not the greatest idea. After going through a week and a half of life under a strange medicated haze, my days and nights have gotten all mixed up. So for the past two nights I have lain awake in bed, unable to sleep until the wee hours of the morning. We’re talking very wee here. As in, 4:30 in the morning wee. So I was maybe not in the most stable frame of mind when I decided to flip through the pages of my past.

Luckily, I have a fantastic therapist who is very forgiving of her gimpy patient. She called me ten minutes after my appointment was supposed to start, and when I saw her name on the caller ID my mind slugged through several difficult shifts. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure what day it was, so the realization that I was late for my appointment was slow in coming. She suggested that we have a phone session today, so we talked for 45 minutes and I was able to process some of the feelings that arose from reading my old journal.

I told her that I feel like moving out of my parent’s house and starting my life as a wife and mother doesn’t play out in my mind as a normal passage of time. Instead it seems like those years at home, the ones written about in that journal, were lived by a very sad and scared girl. Then there was an end to that girl’s life, and across a great chasm of time another person’s life began, and that’s who I am today. It seems like another life, lived by another person. And because of that I don’t have the events that occurred during that time filed away with the rest of my memories. They are locked up in a dusty old box and shoved to the back of my brain. I’m unable to think back on that period of time in my life without feeling like that box has been opened and is overwhelming me by the sudden deluge of its contents. So in order to protect myself from such a painful onslaught, I just try not to think about it at all. I can remember the feelings and emotions of that period of time, but when I recall specific events (such as this one) it feels like I have thrown my body into an icy lake. The cold sucks my breath away and as my muscles begin to freeze and I sink down into the water, I start to panic because I know there is no way out. These memories have a way of paralyzing me. They launch me back across the chasm and remind me what it felt like to be that girl. And oh, how that hurts.

Kari’s response surprised me. She said that it seems like I have stopped feeling guilty for the things that have happened, and that the shame I associate with those memories is evolving into grief. And grief is such an amazing step. If I can grieve for that girl, for her pain and her losses, then I can heal. And then, praise God, I can finally move on. Seeing how far I have already come from the sad girl I once was gives me hope that someday I’ll be able to look back on her and feel nothing but pride that I made it through such a crappy adolescence and became a stronger, more compassionate woman because of it.

I closed the comments for last night’s post because it felt too raw for feedback. I didn’t want reassurance, I just wanted it out there. I have received a few amazing emails though, and to those of you who cared so much to send me those kind word I thank you with all of my heart. This is an ugly process, this growing and healing thing. It’s ugly and it’s frightening and it takes a really friggin long time. But it is so necessary, and I am grateful I have so many of you who are willing to help me along the way. Someday, I hope, I’ll be able to live like that quote on my sidebar. I’ll let go. I’ll jump in. And I’ll find beauty.