June 2024

I was thirteen when my mom took a class at the local women’s shelter. It was a pattern changing class, which meant she was learning how to break cycles and change the patterns that end in abusive relationships. At the end of the class, there was a party of sorts where she had key lime pie. This was July 9th, 2013, and every year since, we’ve had key lime pie in July.

Nine years later, July 9th, 2022, I was living at home post-college graduation. It had been a year of taking a step forward and being thrown five steps back, and absolutely nothing had gone according to plan. I hadn’t officially graduated yet, but I was taking my final 8 science credits online and living in California while doing that. We had just celebrated my mom’s nine year key lime pie anniversary, but this year felt different. I couldn’t explain it, but I felt frustrated. Almost like I needed to be further along in my own healing process. A few days later, I was crying on my bed and my mom was asking what was going on. I told her I was angry with myself for not being further ahead. She said that, rather than trying to figure out who I was before the abuse and going back to it, I had to become a person after the abuse. It’s a different kind of hard.

The last two (ish) years have been about learning how to be a person. They’ve been about becoming independent. They’ve been about learning what it means to know who I am, what I like, and who I want to be. They have been hard years. They have had so much stress, and so much heartache. But I’ve also learned a lot about what I want. I’ve learned how to have a better work/life balance and how to combine much of what I love to make something new. I’ve made choices I regret and choices that I’ll hopefully be thankful for in a few years. I’ve thrown myself into things and thrown myself out of others. I’ve spent so much time thinking. Thinking about who I am, what I want, and who I want to be. And now, I feel like I’m ready to become more.

So that’s what this is. This is me gearing up to share, to do, and to be. I don’t know what the next year looks like. I don’t know how I’ll feel, what I’ll want, or who I’ll be. But I hope I feel whole. I hope I feel human.