Seven years. A lifetime. Had someone told me then that my life would lead me here someday, I doubt I would have believed them. Back then I was a small town girl, everything beyond the city limits was imaginary. Places such as Florida and England were just beyond comprehension.
I'd like to think I was happy as a child. I had peers and family that kept me busy. I was in all of the typical activities of a girl my age. Our lives revolved around things typical of a small town; church, school, family, and neighbors. In times of need it would be these institutions we would turn to and more often than not, it would be these that left us out in the cold.
I was raised fairly religious, in the same narrow-minded church my mother had grown up in and as much as it hurt, I learned that in the end, they simply could not be trusted. Schools were no better. Their disinterest left me floundering within myself, unable to communicate or relate to others.
Family and friends quickly faded instead of rising up and helping us out. People I had been taught to trust as a child soon proved to be unwilling or unable to provide the security that had been promised.
I'm not sure when the world changed. When parents could not be trusted and home was no longer safe. When the order of everything became inverted and the innocent child became the one who everyone else began leaning on. The one that was supposed to have it all together. It's not meant to be that way.
Nothing used to bother me, I was ready to take on the world, and I do still have some of that in me. Now it's a different story, the thought of placing a simple phone call or initiating a conversation has become stressful. It has become easier to simply not ask questions or speak up at all.
A story in progress
