Please forgive misspelled words and the misuse of words...it's late and i'm tired.

What a tangled web we weave.

It seems the more I learn, the less I know. Yes, I admit it, I am not the brilliant woman born of two ignorant individuals as I believed last month (well not quite that recent). College has been a collaboration of editorials on how to live, a journey of learning and recognizing and letting go. Separation from what once was has merged with the present, creating a web of living. I find myself to be the spider...sometimes spinning and sometimes caught in my own meathodical creation. There have been difficulties along the way which have contoured the shell of who I am to be. I have had to learn patience, mercy, good will, and humanity the hard way, man vs. himself, most of the time. I have said things I would like to erase and have thought things that would only harm if voiced. The tongue, indeed, is a two edged sword. I am indebted to the grace of my friends and do not deserve their understanding ears.

I knew there was a reason for my taking this silly course my Senior year (one that should have been completed long ago). It has, even in its first lecture, begun to unravel the threads of my knotted history. There is a burden one carries when previous generations suffer- the burden being to stand strong for those most wounded. Be it assault, substance abuse, unfaithfulness, lack of belief, death, or all of the above, the pus of sin oozes through the bloodline. Each member of the family plays a role; For example, the hero feels subjected to emotional neutrality, acting as glue toward multiple chipped or broken relatives.
(Hero=family member bearing the weight of responsibility, emotional stabililty, and facade of happiness and/or achievement)
As previously stated, the more I learn, the less I know. This blog is soley for the purpose of digesting what is fed to me each day. No one post includes a final answer; But, each is a process meant for personal growth and release.

I do not claim to be a hero in the sense of Superman, nor do I wish to sell my soul to pity. Instead, I have chosen to face the reality of imperfection and use the hand dealt for good. I have run out of speed and am done with pleasing the abyss. Too much time has been wasted cheating others, and myself, of the power behind being raw and completely vunerable before a world terrified of failing. My energy runs on empty and the pressure to be forever "fine" is no longer enticing. I dare not say that my life has been less than sheer bliss, for it has exceeded every great expectation. I am grateful for each moment of opportunity that has presented itself and have minimal regrets. The rawness mentioned is a product of unopened diaries that have for so long, collected dust, in the dormant corners of my soul. The words that fill such abstract manuscripts were written by men and women who left legacies for their children, their children's children (me). It is written, somewhere and somehow (don't quote me), that our sins will come to fruition in the lives of our offspring, even many generations down the line.

Sifting through the baggage is difficult. I find that I do not know how to handle certain emotions because I lack a knowledge of their origin. Some bitter roots are not mine to claim...they invite themselves into my life and feed off of my unawareness, all the time diving deeper, latching on to my heartstrings. It has been interesting to watch the third generation come to a collective (yet independant) realization that we too have been affected like our parents. Together, we try to talk through the nonsensical pain that causes us to embrace solitude. We understand eachother and that we are not ungrateful for the lives we have been given. And thankful for the blessings, we press on, demanding answers, in effort to unchain ourselves from the ties that bind us. We recognize our confusion and refuse to deny that, regardless of our being shielded from intimacy with danger, we too have been affected by the lives that preceded our entering this world. We blame no one. We seek no attention. We only search for a new direction that will lead us away from the traps that await us.

I sometimes wonder why I write the things I write, unfiltered and unedited; But, it is important to me that I stay an open book. Writing is theraputic. It is honest. Paper (or computer screen) does not respond, it only listens. It allows for mistakes and frusteration, silliness, and the occasional foot in the mouth statement of the century. People deserve to know that they are not the only ones wrestling with "stuff." I think if we said more than "hey, how are ya?" in a fleeting moment, we would begin to notice that we are all living the same general story. When we are able to confront our fears, we are empowered to defeat them. It is then that we will find the unrelinquished freedom to be who we have always wanted to be-the freedom we never thought we would be able to attain.

If you are still reading, start writing.