Have you realized yet how I'm just a kid running around trying to grab the attention of all the important people in my life that never could give it to me as a kid. Always seeking for the attention, the validation, the longing to be loved with adoring eyes and warm, warm, warm hugs and gentle kisses. I never knew that, I never experienced the warm love that is present in all of our arms. I'm running around right now in my life as the kid I never got to be. I'm just now realizing that maybe I'm something more than just standing around and looking pretty. Something more than running around trying to make everyone laugh but feeling completely awful inside. The awful that chews up your insides, the churn of the bloated belly and shoulder blades deep in ache from the shovel and the rake. Trying to plow the seeds for something ahead, something to be congratulated for, something to be noticed for, admired for, adored for because that feels good. That's the only thing I know, I was always treated like an object. Something to be talked about and tossed around. Never having the chance to say how I felt about any experience. At some point I just stopped feeling all together. It was easier to be happy, but secretly crying into my journal or pouring my heart out into a song. Do you realize I dress the way I do so people tell me I look nice because I don't know it for myself to be true? Did you realize yet that everything I do is for you? For you to realize that I am a person too but I'm so lost inside I don't know how to do anything other than try to impress you. And do you realize how much I love you but only know how to make you love me ? Never experiencing the giving because I never experienced the receiving. And now I'm experiencing the joy of breathing, of discovering, playing, dancing, anything and everything that got shut out from the start. But it was never anyone's fault....for so long I thought. Instead it was the dying need to be embraced and not fought. Never assuming the reality as a child. Because if children are not seen as our same then surely we will all feel that they are a pain and only worth the time when I was falling, crying, failing, succeeding, lying, manipulating, and finally controlling how you will feel and perceive me. Everything except just being me. Calling my name, calling me back home to my roots of sadness and rejection. I was told that I had a pretty face, she's going to get all the boys in school, you should be a model, you've got the legs and the face. You're never going to get a boyfriend like that picking your face. You should learn how to cook yourself a meal, how are you going to cook your husband dinner after he gets home ? I simply replied...he can cook himself dinner....never learning the love that comes with cooking someone a meal and the desire to sit share it with another person just to sit and share it with someone...not the annoyance of "have to's" the annoyance that came along with having to feed a whiny kid and yourself too. Never enjoying our selves and simply being with each other. I don't know that feeling quite yet, but my daughter Winslow is helping me with it tremendously. To her, I owe her my freedom.