Red Raw

Have you ever found yourself at rock-bottom?

Having my picture taken, as a twelve-year-old, I felt truly beautiful for the first time in my life. It was an unfamiliar but pleasant feeling that day. For a fleeting moment in a lifetime of trauma, I felt loved and cherished. 

As a child, I lived in fear of losing those I loved if the awful truth were made public. 

By age twenty, with poor life skills and a one-year-old baby, I felt I had lived decades beyond my years. My terrible choices landed me in a jail cell, and life was an absolute mess. I had no idea how I had gotten there, or how to fix it. I was utterly defeated. 

At age thirty, I made an impulsive decision which left me extremely exposed and vulnerable, shaken to my core. It was a turning point in my life, but to get to the sunshine, you've got to weather the storm. 

And weather the storm I did.