There has not been a day of 2010 that hasn't been harrowing on some level. Some days it gets easier, and other days it's harder. Some days I want to cry when I'm alone, and somedays I want to smack everyone I see just so they will shut up and leave me alone. I suppose one could say there have been some good parts to it...I'm doing well in school (of course, this wouldn't be so without my BFF essentially doing the better part of my algebra homework for me), I'm becoming more bold with my words, and I'm a little more confident in the path I'm on...but sometimes...mostimes...unless I've got something to distract me, it's awful. It's sickening to think that I may have thrown away the love of my family for things that happened when I was a child. I just don't know where that line of forgiveness is. I want so desperately to forgive, but it's difficult to forgive when I know nothing has really changed. Forgiveness feels like excusing the behavior, which is absolutely inexcusable.

I've been presented with a few schools of thought on how to handle this. One came from Dean, who said that when he was at Lodge, the counselors told him and his fellow campers that the adults in their lives that had wronged them may never apologize or see the error of their ways, so the counselors were going to apologize for everything that had ever been done to these kids. I suppose, in a way, it was symbolic of the universe apologizing, because no one can really, truly apologize for something that someone else has done.

Another significant adult in my life told me that as a child, she was forced to witness some horrendous violence against her brother, with her father being the one administrating the beating. She was forced to watch under threat that if she cried, she'd be beaten as well. As an adult, her therapist told her that when those horrible memories return, to take your child-self in your arms and protect them, and then scream bloody murder at whomever is doing the abusing, Cuss at them, call them names, hit, stab, punch, kick...whatever you feel you need to do, do it. And always protect yourself.

This struck a chord in me, the thought of my adult self railing at my stepfather and mom, who, when all of the abuse was happening, were only a few years older than I am now. My mother always says to me, and has ever since I was small, that I don't know what I'm talking about (regarding the abuse), or that I haven't lived long enough to know what I am talking about. If I were truly able to take myself in my arms, my almost-thirty year old arms, and scream at my thirty-year old stepfather that beating his children was wrong...and this is where I get lost, because I so desperately want that to be real. I want to hold myself with true gentleness, I want to go back in time and erase incidents and occurrences. And I can't. And I'm left feeling very empty. And terrified that if and when Dean and I have children, the cycle will perpetrate itself.