Daddy Issues and the Bride

Watching a scene from an otherwise hilarious movie, I broke down in tears.  It was the wedding scene...specifically the one when the proud and sometimes tearful father walks the beautiful and beaming bride down the aisle. They look at each, and it is undeniably their moment.

You would think that by now I would have gotten over my dad not walking me down the aisle at my wedding. You would think that by now I wouldn't give a shit about what did or did not happen on that fateful day. I am, after all, running back up the aisle and exiting the church.

But I give a shit. I can't watch another virtuous bride take her father's steady arm to be guided down that uncertain path to the rest of her life without remembering how much it hurt that he simply didn't come. That I offered to pay for his tuxedo and his airfare as long as he just agreed to come. He never said no, but he never said yes. He just strung me along saying that maybe he would, until it inevitably turned into I can't. There was no real reason...he just never made up his mind to say yes.

How could a man not want to walk his daughter down the aisle? It is the fundamental question that I still can't answer. If you have done hardly anything right by your daughter and she allows you one more opportunity to show up, how could you possibly turn it down?

No way I was going to let him ruin my wedding day. I decided that I would walk alone. I had, after all, come this far without him. I could certainly walk a few more steps alone. I believe this is one of the best decisions I have made, and I think I was beautiful.

And so why now? Why still? Why do I still miss his arm supporting mine?

Exhausted and Ashamed

There is no beginning or end to what I need to write about. In fact, there is no "about"...I just need to write. It's been so long that I feel bottled up. The longer that I don't touch base with what's going on in my head, the further away I get...the more I isolate, the less I want to talk...or write...or see anyone.

This is me going down, exhausted and ashamed...looking for punishment, wanting to cut. I think about it, read about it. I breathe it in and out. I want to be left alone to my sick thoughts and my blades.

This is me asking for help because I should...not because I want to.

The Girl Who Says Yes

In EMDR today I saw the girl who says yes. I looked at her, and I hated her. I was disgusted with her, and she looked back at me ashamed. I wish I could have done something...she was so sad. But I was afraid...that I'll always be the girl who says yes.

Bold and Brave

Bold and brave is how I would describe myself in EMDR today. It's not that I welcomed the memories; I was actually very afraid of them...but I didn't turn away from them. I faced them. When I found myself in my stepfather's van, I looked for the curtains. Where were we? Where did he do it? I want to remember, because there is power in remembering...in knowing what he did.

Cathartic Poetry

Sometimes writing is like food...can't go on without it. For me, these days, it's been back to the poetry...that old secret code of mine. It's how I started writing as a teen. I thought that if I wrote in cryptic poems, no one would know what I was writing about...and it worked.

Now, I've returned to the poems. They are so cathartic...I can get so much shit out in one little poem. And I'm not afraid to write them because, what the hell, no one knows what the fuck I'm writing about.

I wrote another one this morning...and now I feel like I can breathe.

Fighting Depression

My depression sometimes arrives in the morning when I start to wake. I know it's there because it grabs me with its cold clammy fingers as I reach for the light, and it pulls me back into it's desperate shadows. As my mind awakens, I feel the dread of pain, instead of the hope of a fresh start. I know what's coming when the morning begins this way.

I will fight it. I will not sink. The summer has been too bright and comforting to succumb to this old pain the ass. I will rise. I will write. I will do.

The Girl Who Sickens Me

It's time to write about the girl who sickens me. She's the one who still doesn't seem to know how to say no...not always...not when it comes down to the nitty-gritty...and it's pretty gritty. Understand, she can say no sometimes. In fact, she says it a lot. Her asshole STBX has ridiculed her, asking if she ever knows how to say yes...but she does say yes...against her will...how could he not see it?

The girl who sickens me says no to an extent...to a point...until her asshole STBX insists and persists for a hug or a kiss, often more but she knows to say no to that. But shit, she can't find a way to get through the moment other than by giving in to the fucking kiss or hug. She can't find a way to move on, to get him out of the house, or to get him to let go of her.

Oh yes, she tells him no...two, three, maybe five times, but he persists. And she just wants to escape, to be done with the moment, to be done with him! So she dutifully goes for the peck kiss and the hug and sends him on his way while he turns and insists on another, and another..."Open your mouth this time", he says.

She doesn't open her mouth, but someone deep in her core is violently ill. Someone deep in her entrails wonders how the fuck she can do it...after everything she's been through. It's like she's back with her stepfather...can't say no...how am I going to get home if I don't agree?

The girl who sickens me is me...I make myself sick.

Hiding

I arrived at my therapist's office today in sunglasses. Well, I wasn't wearing them when I walked into his office, just when I arrived. Today was about hiding, and the sunglasses help. Without them, I feel as if anyone can look into my eyes and see...everything. Behind the sunglasses, I can hide the sadness, the pain, the hurt, the anger, the confusion...everything.

I took the sunglasses off before I went in his office...but I wanted to wear them all day long. I threw a blanket over me, partly to protect my exposed summer skin from the chill in the arctic air conditioned room...but mostly to hide.

"Are you hiding from me?", he asked. Yes. Yes, I was. Sometimes, I want to hide from him...from his eyes, his questions, from the way he knows just how to reach me. But who am I kidding? It's not him I want to hide from...it's me, of course.

I want to hide from what I see in the mirror he holds up...from the truth that remains at the bottom of the beaker after all the volatile emotions have evaporated.

That's Where His Power is!

"That's where his power is.", my therapist said some weeks ago when I talked about my fear. I had just told him of my small victory in letting my STBX know that I did not want to hug him and I did not want to be held by him. Then, I felt the little ghost rise like a vapor. I saw it, and I spoke it out loud. "Still, in the back of my mind, I am afraid of his reaction to my words", I said. "That's where his power is", he replied.

So here I am, apparently still afraid, my wedding ring blistering my skin like acid. And after everything I've been through, I can still feel guilt and self-blame. Is it what keeps me from moving forward with the next step?

Welcome Home!

Returning from vacation is, of course, always difficult. Am I the only one who wants to move to wherever it is I am vacationing? Probably not. Fortunately, I've grown enough to realize that living and working wherever I am vacationing will NEVER be like vacationing there - that's why it's VACATION!

Regardless, descending back to my mortal life is a bitch. This time, I found myself dragging it out as much s possible. Because we flew out of an airport an hour and a half away from home, I had a little extra time after landing to extend that vacation...so I did.

After we picked up our van, I took the kids out to lunch...at a sit-down restaurant...that is notorious for being slow to serve...and I let them play checkers...and finish their game before we left.

What can I say? As long as I was on vacation, I felt like I was in a bubble...of happiness. As long as I didn't have to speak or interact with my STBX, life was normal, and I felt at ease. It is only during these periods that I realize the shit I carry around. And yes, it is a million times better than when I actually lived with him, but still there is that fucking residual fear of what the hell he is going to say next or what fucking mind game am I going to have to field or dodge next. Exhausting.

So I put myself on the road during exactly the five o'clock rush hour and drove home slowly...enjoying...and dreading.

Light My Fire!

All I know is that the writing helps me get off my ass, charging me up like the proverbial fire under it. I suppose there is something about facing that which paralyzes me, looking at it square in the eye and putting it "out in the open". I guess it loses some of its power that way...some of it.

I won't do it again today. I won't lie around wondering why I act this way. I'll write, then I'll get up and do, and live...like I did the other night.

Yes, I am aware of the obvious - something inside me feels like I don't deserve the good times, the happiness, a carefree vacation with my children. Digging deeper, I find that I believe that it is a different kind of person who plans and organizes ahead of time in order to minimize stress. Deep inside, I think that it is someone else who leaves for vacation with their house and finances in order and their bags thoughtfully packed. I know, to the average mom, that image seems to come straight out of a fairy tale book. But I'm not talking about the fairy tale...I'm just talking about reasonable sanity.

I have time and space to achieve that reasonable sanity...I just need that fire lit!

Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire

The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire

from Light My Fire, The Doors

Self-Sabotage

In about a week's time, I will be sitting at a beach on an island off the southern coast of the United States, delighting in the warm completeness of having all of my three children around me. It will be marvelous!

But you wouldn't know it by the looks of me tonight. I am doing what I do so often...sabotage...sabotage...sabotage my own good times. There is packing to be done, a house to be cleaned, arrangements to be made...yet I do nothing. I know myself. I know that I do better when things are in order. I am happier when I have ample time to prepare. I do not thrive in last minute rush hour. I know that the way to avoid frantic stress and last minute exhaustion is to take care of things this weekend...but I don't.

I look around the messy house, the wilted flowers in their two inches of milky water, the piles of unfolded laundry on each available bed, the stack of bills that beg attention and I turn away instead. I read Pat Conroy and let his dark and lyrical words push and pull my memories and emotions like his own Lowcountry tides. Reading this book is dangerous, I know, but I simply can't resist him. It would be better if I packed a suitcase, or cleaned my bathroom, or threw away those godforsaken sunflowers...they're bringing me down.

What's it going to take for me to do good for me? I can visualize the way that I want things to be, but I refuse to take the steps necessary to arrive there.

I need to talk.

I Stopped Reading After Newtown

When a friend texted me last night to share some information on the demographics of the victims of the recent Orlando night club shooting, I was amazed to find that I had known practically nothing about the details of this deadly tragedy. All I knew was that another motherfucker went crazy and shot a bunch of people in Orlando...again.

It's not that I don't care... I do. It's just that Newtown broke me. And it keeps breaking me. Every time another one of these shootings happens, I break again. I go back to Newtown, to twenty first graders and their valiant teachers, and wonder what in the world went wrong that these children weren't enough to change things in this nation.

So I had to stop reading and listening after Newtown. When I hear of another shooting, I find myself putting up my shield again...and thinking of the children...and breaking...and wondering what the fuck? I don't attack the web for details and information. Knowing everything doesn't change anything...at least not for me...not during these times. Sometimes I catch something on NPR, and I might let myself listen...a little...an interview with a mother...who is now broken...forever.

The gunman keeps winning.

Can I be Home Alone?

The kids will be at the beach with their father for the rest of the week. Towards the end of the school year, I expend much energy and focus on helping them wrap up their year as smoothly and stress-free as possible. I will be able to spend much needed time focusing on my needs and perhaps a little self-care.

...or so I thought. After seeing my therapist this afternoon, I treated myself to a fantastic dinner at a gem of a local restaurant which I had been wanting to try for quite some time (the chardonnay tasted exactly like an oak room!). It was after leaving the restaurant that it hit me that I did not want to go home...that I was afraid to go home. I was afraid of being home alone and being depressed and just spiraling down. I was paralyzed in my van...in a parking spot...on the street...in front of this restaurant.

I decided to email my therapist and then set my GPS for home. As I was waiting for his phone call, I drove following the directions from Ms. Google and not thinking that I was driving home. When I arrived, I went in the front door straight through the back door and sat in the back yard to write this post.

After talking with him, I knew that he was right. I am going to be OK. I have been in this place before, and I have risen from it. I am different now...stronger. I will not harm myself, and I will not sit paralyzed in a room thinking about it. I will do something good for me. In fact, I already did.

In the past, I have sat on the floor talking with my therapist on the telephone. He would urge me to go outside, to leave the house. At that time, I felt that nothing could be more terrifying. Today, I didn't even give myself the opportunity to go there. I went straight outside, picking up my laptop in stride, and wrote.

I'm going inside now, as confident in myself as my therapist said he was in me. I'll be OK. I can do this. I'll be OK.

Free Write

Today I'm writing just because I know it's good for me...like eating your vegetables (except writing tastes more like fruit). "I have nothing to write about", I thought...but I reminded myself that it just takes a few words to get me going...like the free-writes that my high school English teacher taught us to do.

I have two brutal shifts this weekend - two back-to-back 8AM to 8PM shifts at a store high in volume and low in staff help...and invariable someone always calls out. This is the kind of weekend that requires a lot of self care.

My discomfort started as I walked into the pharmacy yesterday and saw a box cutter that was careless tossed on the robot counter (yes, it counts drugs for us). It was  nobody's fault...busy store...no time to properly put things away...they don't have my problem...seeing a blade like that may not take them back to darker times of self-harm like it does me. I left it there and proceeded with my tasks of opening the pharmacy.

It bothered me the entire day, my mind flashing back and imagining the cutting. It was such an arduous day, I thought I could cut...but I didn't. I've come such a long way. I've been in this spot before, and the difference is that this time I knew that I wouldn't. At the end of the day, I went home, took a warm bath in chamomile-scented Epsom salts, took some ibuprofen for my swollen and aching body, read a book and got a good night's sleep.

...Self care.

You Don't Own Me

I sat with my therapist this morning just feeling sad...talking about my STBX and feeling sad, like I hadn't in months. Talking about the words he had texted me and feeling sad. Talking about his bold disrespect for my boundaries this morning, and just feeling sad...on the verge of tears.

But when I left his office, I wanted to write...but not at home. For the first time since I left my husband, I did not feel safe in my home...and it made me angry. It's not that I felt he would break in or anything, but I felt that he could come by and ring the bell and want to come in. I would not have to let him in, but I would have to deal with him emotionally. My writing would be interrupted and I may or may not be able to return my focus to where I had left off.

So I came to a coffee shop like I used to do when we were still together, and I wanted a private place to write. A place that he would not frequent and that is completely devoid of any reminders of him.

Sometimes it's like that. I simply need to erase him. It's like that now. His words were so vile that I just want to erase him and anything that reminds me of him from my memory. Why does he think he can still touch me? I want to spit flames from my body when he comes near me. I wish I had flames to burn him whenever he touches me.

There is nothing that I can say or do to make him understand that he doesn't own me, but I've been told this is not where I need to expend my energy. I need to continue to set up my wall...but it's fucking exhausting. I mean, how do you make a man understand that he cannot just touch you at will? At what point does a woman just file a restraining order?

You don't own me
I'm not just one of your many toys
From You Don't Own Me, Lesley Gore

The Power of Words

Sometimes the power of words can linger even if I don't want it to. Sometimes, I remind myself over and over that there is no truth in those words...and I am fine, I am strong, I believe my truth.

Other times, the words sneak up on me, and I wonder which part of them may be true...the sharpness of their knife cutting me the way they were intended.

Say Thanks, and Write On!

Sometimes I don't write because I don't have the time or the energy (that happens a lot). Sometimes it's because I don't want to deal with what it is I need to write about. Other times I just don't want to remember. Today, I know it's not the first reason. Today I know I need to thank reasons two or three for their good work in trying to protect me, and I need to just write.

Recently, I have been basking in the pleasure of busy yet light and upbeat days. Meanwhile, I have been looking back on the shadow of my depression throughout the last Christmas season and feel like I have risen through that. In other words, I know that I am OK because I am far from feeling the way I felt then.

And then I started reading a memoir again...another story of abuse and courage. And I feel my mood is slipping. Cognitively, I think I should just stop reading this stuff...but emotionally, I feel like I want to remember. I read other people's stories in order to remember my own. But is it necessary? Do I need to remember everything? I don't know. I know that I don't want to fall back into depression again.

Closing Unit 927

What do you want from me when I just wanna restart
You keep coming back for me when you're the one who tore us apart
And the truth is I'm better on my own
And I'm the one to leave it apart
So let me restart

(from Restart, Sam Smith)

Today, I was finally ready to close Unit 927 and bring all my belongings home. I had originally planned to use it until I moved into my own space. It's been just over two years. At first, I kept it because the first house I moved into after leaving my husband was somewhat small, and I felt I still was not organized enough to find places for the items that were in the unit. That was true, but so was the fact that I just wasn't ready.

When I moved into my new bigger house last fall, I knew that there would be plenty of space for all our belongings and that I would truly be able to close the unit...but I still didn't. That was when I realized that I was simply holding on to that precious space, that first step into the fresh air that I so courageously took.

I still liked going in there and feeling bold and independent. Often, I went in to retrieve items in an effort to empty the space as gradually as I had filled it. Every month I went in to pay the bill in person, and I never again saw the kind woman who so empathically assisted me through the process of opening a storage unit. I understood that she was there precisely when I needed her.

Today, when I went in to retrieve the few remaining items and sweep the floor, I was so different from the day I first opened the door. In the past, I had been quiet and inconspicuous...afraid of being seen...afraid of being noticed. Today, I drove around openly. I left the music on in my van as I worked and was able to say goodbye and thank you to this almost sacred space to the tune of "Restart" and "Defying Gravity". I was happy, open and relaxed. There was no more fear.

Perhaps I am one who holds on too long and too tightly to things and places that must be released. I take my time...when I am ready...and I am now ready to emerge from the frightened fugitive into a courageous woman standing on her own two feet.

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes... and leap!

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I am defying gravity
And you won't bring me down!

(from Defying Gravity, as performed by Lea Michele and Chris Colfer, Glee)

Reading Terror

I picked up Sue Silverman's book a few weeks ago...by "pick up" I mean started reading. This is her memoir, her ride on her own memory train of sexual abuse and survival. The title is Because I Remember Terror, Father I Remember You. I call it Terror for short.

You must know that I bought this book some years ago along with Fearless Confessions, her guide to writing memoir. I thought it would be helpful to read her memoir along with her writing guide, since she makes references to sections of her own book as examples.

I'm not sure what lead me to believe that I would be ready to read such a story at that particular time in my life. I'm not sure why I thought I was prepared to enter someone else's nightmare while I was still in the midst of my own. I realized that I wasn't when, after reading the Preface, I closed the book and didn't open it again until now. Shortly after I closed Terror, I also stopped reading the memoir writing guide.

I don't know what prompted me to find that book again a few weeks ago. It was a feeling, it was an urge that told me I must read the story. I must go back there. I must read her memories so that I could discover mine.

The book was buried in a box that was buried in a room that is buried in more boxes...but I went to it. I was drawn to this particular spot in this particular box as if by internal GPS. I retrieved it and began reading right away. One page at a time, I told myself...but before long, I found myself woven in the fabric of her horrific childhood.

As I read the details of her memories, I realized what my fear was. I feared remembering all my own details...and I feared not knowing all my own details. As I read Silverman's story, I became aware of how many details from my own past I do not remember. I remember feelings, both physical and emotional, but there are so many details that I don't remember...and that scares me...as much as it scares me to remember them.

I am afraid that I have purposely forgotten much of my childhood in order to protect myself. I am afraid to know what all the details were, but I am also afraid of going through life not knowing what the details were. But who remembers their entire childhood...good or bad?

I Know Why I Sleep on My Stomach

It was back to EMDR today. I had not gone there in so long that I had almost forgotten how to do it...but a session was necessary.

I started out with the image and the feeling of my STBX hugging me just to say hello or goodbye but then pressing his erection against me. An image, of course, leads to a memory and a memory leads to another. Inevitably, I ended up as a child in my bedroom trying to hide and protect myself from my stepfather. The memory was visceral, and I felt both fear and disgust like an electrical current all across the front of me including my genital area.

I know why I sleep on my stomach, I thought, and I was suddenly angry. Not at my stepfather or even STBX. I was angry at the chiropractor who made the recommendations that I recently read in an article online. It frowned upon stomach sleeping. The article itself was completely benign and intended to help people improve their posture and relieve neck and back pain. But during this morning's session, I remembered the article and I thought angrily, how dare you? How can you tell people not to sleep on their stomachs, if you don't know why they sleep on their stomachs in the first place?!

I know why I sleep on my stomach! I need to feel protected and safe! I need to cover myself...I need to keep my stepfather away. I thought he couldn't touch me if I was rolled over on my stomach...but he found me anyway...he touched me anyway, He always did. There was nothing that I could do to keep him away...NOTHING.

So during my session, he did find me, and he did come in, and he did touch me and roll me over. And during my session, I didn't want to know what he was doing...but now I know what he was doing. I just don't know if it's better to say or not say. There is nothing I can do about that scene anymore. I will never undo it. I can never even ask him why...what the fuck possessed him? He licked my genitals like I was his fucking tramp on the side. There, I said it, but I don't know if it's any better. But he acted like he was offering me some of the good things in life. He proceeded as though he were teaching me the facts of life. He was doing me a favor...enriching me. I was to see him as my teacher and not my abuser. I think I'm still confused.

Can you see why I didn't want my husband's face in my vagina?

From Me Time to Girl Time

The first time that I went out after separating form my husband was the time that I wrote the post In High Heels and Makeup and Mint Green . I had dressed to the nines and gone out alone to try out my new life and enjoy my own company. I had a fabulous evening.

Since that lovely night about a year and a half ago, I have enjoyed other similar outings, some less glamorous than others...all alone. Recently, I had begun to worry about myself. Was I enjoying my time alone so well that I was not making space for the company of friends? I truly felt like an evening out alone was just as enjoyable as being out with others...but still. Even I was beginning to feel that it was a little bit odd.

That changed this past weekend. Upon learning that I had a rare Friday night off work without the kids, a good friend of mine casually tossed that we should do something together. I thought about it, hesitated slightly before I tentatively offered that maybe we could go see a movie. It will probably not work out, I thought.

...but it did...and we went...and we had a fabulous night! Cocktails, dinner and a movie...the same night that I would have had alone, but there was something rich about sharing it with a girlfriend. There was something that told me that I was growing, making progress, that those baby steps were going somewhere.

The night that I set out in my high heels and makeup and mint green, I knew that it was my first step and that I would have to proceed one step at a time. I knew that it would take some time before I would be ready to share an evening with another adult...man or woman. I knew that I would first have to discover how I am alone. And then, I knew that my next step would be spending time with women. I think that's where I am now. It might be where I stay. I still feel like I will never trust a man again. I will always feel like his real beast will always emerge as soon as the novelty of the relationship wears off.

I'm OK with girls' night out forever.

The Same Old Shame

As a response to my previous post, I am writing this without barriers. I am looking into the icy gray wind and facing the honest answers. This is what I see when I ask where the anger comes from.

She emerges from the suspended comfort of December, from the holiday-fabricated bubble that postpones making decisions and facing any difficult or otherwise soul-ripping situations. As she steps into January, ice hits her like a million grains of sand cutting her to pieces, but she stands still and strong. She knows it's time.

Yet, it is this very knowledge that wants to defeat her. It is knowing what must be done and what hasn't been done that shames her. It is knowing that she has, at times, compromised her resolve in the name of peace. It is the image of her obliging a man in the name of peace that shames her.

And every time she remembers that there are things she hasn't done, because for now it's easier to keep the peace, she feels the same old shame...and she wants to slay it...with her images...of cutting.

Afterthought:

I have been trying to answer this question for a few weeks now, and every time I sat down to write the proverbial wall went up. I found that I couldn't bring myself to look into this part of me. Finally, this morning I started to write again and decided to try to look at it in the third person. I thought maybe it would be easier to write about myself as if I were watching from the outside...it worked.

Slaying My Shame

"Loving your shame doesn't mean you love what happened to you. It means you love you."

-Terri St.Cloud

The Fabric of Her Dancing Shoes

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm

I don't fully understand the meaning of this quote, but it rang somewhere deep within me when I read it this evening. It felt like it applied to me, like I can somehow relate.

Perhaps it's because my shame has surfaced in so many ways during the last few months...and I'm so tired of seeing it, of feeling it. In fact, I've mastered the art of slaying my shame. Lately, I've been cutting it down with a virtual blade.

Every time I feel it rise and spill over like burning lava emerging from the core of my anger, I trample it with my images. I vividly visualize scenes of cutting. The painful pangs are replaced with flashing pictures of my blade...of my wrists. The more the shame, the more the pictures...the blade cutting across the skin...the red and angry cuts staring back at me, asking for more...because it's never enough.

The last time I called him from the low and lonely floor, my therapist asked me who I was so pissed off at that I felt I had to take it out on myself as such. I replied that I would have to figure it out, but he said not over Christmas.

Well, it's not Christmas anymore. January is here like the piper wanting to get paid. I have to face the bare branches now. The answers are hanging in the cold gray air...but I'm afraid to look.

10,000 Page Views!

I opened my blog today to find that I had reached the 10,000 page-view mark! How exciting for me! I remember when I started blogging just about three years ago. I was shy and afraid and sure that no one would ever read what I wrote!

I have since published 232 posts with over 1,000 comments! I want to say thank you to my readers for supporting me and encouraging me and for following my story. Thank you for your comments, which materialize your presence and have often served as a lifeline for me.

I often wonder about the quiet readers who leave no visible mark other than a notch in my stats page and little extra color on the map. I hope that if you feel my pain, you do not feel alone and that perhaps you might be walking some of my baby steps with me.

I am proud of this blog. I am proud of the work that I have done as I have written these pages. I am proud of the candid words, the flowing tears, the honesty of it all. This is my place to come clean. This is where I lay it all down.

Thank you, again, for 10,000 page views.