Feel And Heal

       For as long as I can remember, there has existed a “Before” and “After” timeline in my mind. The “before” was me being fat, uneducated, unloved, unfunny, poor and just generally physically uncomfortable. The “after” would be the complete opposite of that! I LOVED letting my mind wander into the “after”. I would be 25 always. I would get older, of course, but pretty much just stay looking and feeling 25. I would be thin but not too thin. I would have a cute apartment in a cute red brick city like Pittsburgh. I would have a cute little animal friend, maybe two. I would have a real life, serious boyfriend who I may or may not have known in my “before” days but that wouldn’t matter because this is “after” and I would be perfect. In the after I would be famous and my job would be to inspire people with my bright cheerfulness.            I do not remember the exact thing that caused me to start thinking of my life in terms of befo...

     I have been in one single fist fight. It was the end of 5 th grade, and shit got real bloody. Little skirmishes with my siblings and cousins don’t count...no this fight was brutal, I was filled with rage and I broke the other girl’s nose and she had to go to the ER.      The rage was stemming from the fact that I became a bullied social outcast within a couple weeks or so of being in America and at Sandy Springs Elementary School in Atlanta, Georgia. I arrived in the US of A in April, 2002 a hopeful and happy girl, grateful to be reunited with my family. We had all been on a refuge journey for months before this and for about 6-8 months my mother, father and two baby siblings had been living in Atlanta while working on finding a way for me to fly here and join them. In that time I was passed around between family members and trusted friends in Europe, moving every couple of weeks.      But I arrived, I made it. I was excited t...