Today's thought...As the year comes to a close.

Normally I will do a good-bye last year, hello this year blog entry, and I probably still will this year, but as I reflect today, on Christmas Day, I realize, I'm kinda in a funk. Oh well. That time of year. I suffer from seasonal depression, not like this is a seriously shocking thing for me, right? Okay. But I was recently given news, and it's going to take me a long time to process.

At first it was, laughing thinking that it was funny when I was given news that...long story short, I don't have to worry about my ex any more. Which for me...is HUGE. And it's not...he's not dead or anything, but I don't have to worry any more about it. Okay so again, at first I'm laughing at the reason why. Then I'm elated, now, I'm not sure how to feel. I'm not sure how to even NOT be in fear any more? Does that make any sense at all?

I've been scared, in one form or another, and looking over my shoulder, for the last fifteen years. I don't know how NOT to be afraid. I don't know how NOT to look over my shoulder. I don't know how to take a deep breath and just...breathe. And don't get me wrong, I KNOW how to put on a good front. I do it almost every day and very few people can see through it. Even people I've known for years can be fooled. I'm that good at it. But now that I don't have to, I don't...I don't know how to feel.

Sometimes I just wish that I could get into contact with someone who has been through what I've been through, and can...not even take my hand...but just tell me it's okay to feel the way I do. It's okay to be scared. It's okay to be angry, or sad, or ready to throw my hands up. That it's okay to want to make peace at the expense of myself, than to fight any more. And I know that everyone that says the opposite to me, just wants to see me succeed and they don't want me to fail and even hate seeing me down at times. They want me to be strong. To not be walked on like a Welcome mat.

But it makes me feel...broken. Like there's something wrong with me. And essentially, I guess there really IS something wrong with me. But not what everyone else thinks. Something that is going to have to be worked on, within myself. I need to find a way to take the steps to get better. As bad as I would NEVER want anyone to go through what I went through, there are people out there who have been through it, and survived it, just like I have. (Though admittedly, at times, I wonder if I have survived it yet.) There's got to be someone out there who can say, "THIS is how you get past this. THIS is what you tell yourself when you're down. THIS is what happens when you don't. And more than anything, it's OKAY that you are the way you are."

So now you ask the obvious. Why don't I just take my own advice, tell this to myself and be done with it? I mean, that's the advice that I give to other people in my situation. That's what I tell someone else, when they're going through a rough time. If it was that easy. Sometimes, I want someone who knows, to just take me in a big hug, and tell me that it's okay. That it's okay to cry about it still, it's okay to be afraid, that it's okay that after all this time, I still shake, when I talk about it. That it's alright to not want to go to a certain place, because someone from my past life might be in there, and I don't want to deal with it. That I'm not broken. And you know, I feel so bad about saying that too. Because people that love me, have told me, at first, that it's okay. And there was that small part of me, that said "You have no idea what I've been through. How do you know it's okay? How do you know, I'm going to be okay?"

And now, I look around, and everyone is just tired of telling me. You would think after fifteen years, I'd get it. And I see it. And I mean lets face it, wouldn't you be tired of fighting the same battle for fifteen years and nothing changing? Where would you draw the line? Where should I? And where do I go from here, now that I know I don't have to worry about it any more?