The last few months of 2023 into 2024 have been very challenging for me, to say the least.

You spend your entire life running away/ hiding from your past. The insecurities of the NOTS: being good enough, being smart enough, being pretty enough, being thin enough, or shapely enough, your boobs are too large, or they are too small. The list just goes on… WTRF!

Oh, and your ADD/ADHD kicks in and you obsess over all of the above and then some. That is a very addictive behavior or what a friend of mine calls my “Squirrel” moments.

Also, the fear of being alone, wanting to please everyone, to ensure they are happy and safe. The BIGGEST fear, what if they knew the “REAL” you? Lawd, how could anyone love that person.

You eventually either figure out that running is futile, or the past finally catches up to you and you slam smack dap into the bitch. And BOY, can she be MutherF-ing mean and UGLY!

You begin to realize that you moved from a small town full of small minds to escape, to become invisible, someone new. But, you forget that the old you is still there. Wherever you go, well hell, there you are. The common denominator is you.

The small scared girl still exists…she is still scared and wants to be everything…She tries and tries and tries, but she still struggles.

What you and she are realizing, is that you can have a past, no matter how good or bad, and it doesn’t have to define who you are. OR, who you are becoming. We are given many roads, curves, bridges, and hell… cliffs to navigate in life, how we choose to do so is up to us.

I have not always taken the right road, turned down the right street and I am terrified of heights, so cliffs are out of the question. But, running smack into a wall, has helped me to see that the past is the past, and embrace it, because even the hard times have really made you who you are. (Well, if you finally decide to stop hiding and pushing shit down and facing the UGLY.)

So in the words of a famous father…”You can’t ride two horses with one ass, sugarbean”…so get off the past horse and put that sweet ass on the horse of the future.