About twenty years ago I was a totally different person. I worked basically on a survival mode. After years of taking care of myself and keeping myself safe I let go. I was and am in a relationship that was safe and healthy. I no longer had to be on guard against someone trying to hurt me for the first time in my life.

Over the years I have healed and grown and changed. I have developed coping strategies that cover such a wide range of situations. Creating those strategies took time and was a slow process. And over the years as I healed and grew some of the strategies became unnecessary. Some, though unnecessary, are still hanging around.

I guess the purpose of this post is just a way for me to mark the growth that I have experienced. It has been awhile since I sat down and truly looked at how much I have grown and changed. As I start down the path that is a new semester in school, one filled with tasks I am unsure of, I needed to see how far I have come to be able to see how far I can go.

The shadow of fear as well as the fear of being less than perfect is a hard one to move out from under. It seems to follow you. My goal for the foreseeable future is to find a way to stand in the sun. To feel the warmth of possibilities and the glow of attempting to do those things that scare me. And to begin to become on the outside the person I have kept safe on the inside. As well as to accept that there are a lot of people around me who have already seen that person and are waiting for me to realize that she is already here.