Let’s be honest with ourselves, this year has been challenging since the Covid-19 virus began. None of us are quite unchanged from the process. We all know who we are. For me, nothing is farther from the truth.

I’ve spent a lifetime feeling like no one really knew who I was. Or even rationale behind WHY I did what I did during my teenage years of trauma. The judgement I felt was outstanding. There was a lot of external judgmental behavior, which led to internal judgment for what seems a lifetime.

I’m now 44 years old, and for the first time, I’m experiencing something odd. What started as a realization at the hotel I work for (the workman that audibly seemed to enjoy conversing with me) to the conversation I had with my God mother about who I am. And now…. Growth. Personal, uninterrupted growth.

That conversation with my God mother led my fifteen year old self to be freed. The literal validation she got, it felt like a spiritual release from a life no longer lived. For years I’ve expressed depression and now anxiety like this: I’m in a glass prison. I can see everyone on the outside, but they can not see me. I can see the positive exchanges between to the relationships. The light, the love, the laughter, yet no one can see me.

I explained this further to my therapist. This prison that I’m in, I do not have much room to move. So I just sit. I sit and despair over what I can’t have and just think about how it’s unfair that I can’t live that way. But…. What resilience means is me finding a door from my prison. It was there all along. Like the prison itself, I made it. So, I open the door. It’s been 44 years since I’ve seen the true light. Things look foreign, so processing takes time. The body is hurt, muscles atrophied, therapy is needed to work them back into functional order. And regular care is needed. From others and for myself.

I feel like a very changed person. A healthier person, mentally. My guard is still up. No matter what anyone may think, I’ve adapted to 29 years of trauma. And while it was hell, it was what I knew. And that definition of myself was who I knew. What I knew. And there is a possibility that I may go back to that prison if I don’t help myself and continue that growth.

So while this journal couldn’t be more aptly named. I will be learning about myself. And I hope you will begin learning about yourselves too. Don’t stay in that prison. Find the door….