Tag Archive for: present

Make the LEAP.

For 16 months I attended an all girls boarding school. It was so damn hard, but I crushed it. As I was preparing to graduate and go out into the world, back into the chaos, I completed two action plans, assignments to help me set my mind on what is to come. I stumbled across them today as I attempted to navigate the great abyss that is my computer desktop. 18 year old me, so long ago, and yet in an instant it all comes flooding back.

            As I get ready to leave SRA I take away the ability to feel my emotions, but not let them overwhelm me. I have the motivation to complete my schoolwork on time and I have more confidence in my ability to do the work well. I am very well aware of my creativity and have confidence enough in my creative abilities to pursue what I love to do in college and probably even beyond that. I eat now to strengthen my body, and I run because I love how my muscles feel when I do. I am aware of my body and what it feels like when I dance or run or play a sport. I look in the mirror without cringing and usually I smile at myself. Things with my family are still pretty rough, but I have learned that I can’t change my family and also from that I have to accept them the way they are. Honesty is the best policy, even if it’s hard and even if someone else lets what I have to say hurt them. Relationships are still hard for me. Although, I have worked on being honest despite what others think and working on not using other people to validate my self worth. I like to lead, but sometimes take charge when I don’t need to. I’ve found my voice and am using it to stand up for myself and to just say what I need to say. I’ve also learned that life goes on until you die and that things just aren’t perfect, I’ll be making mistakes, learning and working my whole life.

Emotionally, I’ve found emotions that I never let myself have, like happiness and excitement. I’ve been able to see my intelligence as something enjoyable, not just a useful thing during the school year. I have found my creativity and use it to do really relaxing things, like paint on a sheet and get all messy or even just coloring in a coloring book. I’ve also taken to reading children’s books to myself which helps me connect with the little Elizabeth inside and also helps me to relax. Well, like I said above, when I dance and run I like how I can feel every inch of my body filled with energy. I love the way it feels. Corny, but it’s almost magical how I feel like i’m floating; once the adrenaline starts flowing my muscles just relax.  Really though, I’ve learned that there’s no magic wand in life. Yeah, sometimes things feel magical, but life isn’t a fairy tale. I have to work for what I want. That concept is magic in itself.

                       I see doubt as my biggest challenge after SRA. When I doubt who I am then everything just falls apart from there. I also think that isolating will be a big challenge because it’s still a lot easier for me to not tell people how i’m feeling or what I’m thinking especially when I’m at home with my family. Keeping commitments has been really hard for me recently and I think it will continue to be a challenge. Especially the little commitments are hard, like going out to dinner, or attending a graduation party. When I don’t keep my commitments I start to feel bad about myself, but I also hurt other people and sometimes even lose their trust in me to be there when I say I will. I still tend to be pretty judgmental, especially of guys, which is one of the ways I avoid intimacy. It’s like an automatic reaction when I meet someone or I feel like we’re getting closer. When I get depressed then I spiral down from there, which goes along with the isolating kinda. As I write this I feel like there are a whole lot of challenges after I leave SRA. Some of them I probably don’t even know about yet. I’ll have to take them as they come.

                       When I’m faced with challenges I know that I have my friends from SRA. I can call them anytime and they’ll talk to me and help me see things from another perspective. They’re just great girls and a really great resource. I like to have a lot of inspiration around my room. My contract is on my mirror, my bulletin board is motivational and I really like quotes so I try to put things like that around so that I see them and they remind of who I am and all that I’m capable of accomplishing. Depression is more like a signal really. It tells me that there’s something that I’m not sharing, not addressing, that I’m holding back. I think mostly, it will be about using my resources; the people I trust in my life, and what I’ve learned.

I had no idea what would what was in store for me. The harsh lessons learned in college, the emotional turmoil as I began to realize that the therapeutic work I had done didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I needed to face. But then again, I also had no idea how I would TRIUMPH! And never in a million years would I have been able to imagine the life that I have now, the person that I have become, and the many things that I have learned over the last 10 years. Cheers to you, my brave 18 year old self.

Thank You. Love, Me.

I was 16 years old. Sitting alone in the middle of an international airport. I knew my dad would catch up to me soon. I’d just escaped a plane ride to a destination I greatly feared. I had every intention of bucking up, bravely enduring the trip and what was to come after, but in the end, the fear was too great, I had to get off. He had followed me, I know he had, grabbing our bags in the process. I knew I was in trouble.

I was ashamed, still afraid, trying to get control of a situation I had zero control over. You see just 24 hours earlier my parents had told me I’d be going to Georgia, to a therapeutic wilderness camp. I’d looked it up online, researched my fate, made peace with it. But as the hours passed, It felt too scary, I wanted to be brave, but I couldn’t.

Back at home after our first attempt to go, the fear overtook me. I sobbed, I self harmed, I screamed a million obscenities at everyone in my path. I was 16. Bigger than a child, but yet still a kid. And I was scared. Scared I would never make it through a wilderness camp, scared of what life looked like ahead of me, scared I would never live a life of peace and joy.

So much in my past that makes me cringe to remember, that causes tears to roll down my cheeks when I write about it. “Who even was she?”, I wonder aloud. “Thank God I’ve grown,” I commend myself, “I’ll just forget about it all, leave it in the past, cover it with this newer model of myself. One that is a little more mentally stable, more sure of herself, more socially acceptable”.

God, no I hope I never do that. I hope I never forget, never stop sharing, never stop thanking little me for everything that has come before now. I’ve been fighting since I was a teeny little thing. Fighting for a better life, for hope that I knew deep down existed. Battling mental illness, and traumas that rocked my little epathetic self. How brave I have been. How dedicated to my future, to the real me that lives deep down inside, to exposing the mess and embracing the truth. So brave.

It’s so much easier to blame the past isn’t? Or to mourn everything that the past could have been had we only done something different. But we didn’t. We have done the very best we’ve ever been able to do in order to survive. The “me” we are today has everything to do with all that came before, the person we’ve been, the choices we’ve made. We are they and they are us.

I’ve been brave. I’ve been strong. All that I am has brought me to this place.

Thank You. Love, me.

? Marisa Kinney photography


I’ll leave you with this, my friends:

“I am the Lord your God, I go before you now
I stand beside you, I’m all around you
Though you feel I’m far away,
I’m closer than your breath
I am with you, more than you know”