I cannot be all the things everyone wants me to be and I am learning to be ok with that.

No one can control my thoughts. Though they may pontificate and judge my actions, but my thoughts are my own.

I am raw and tender and sick to death of everyone expecting more from me because “I know better”. Sometimes, I want to just do what I want because I want to do it. No explanation required.

I am mired in a swirls of secrets that I keep and because I do, I am weary. But I am letting them go a little at a time. Not all at once. They are too much and some are not mine to tell.

Once, I heard it said that “everybody needs a sanctuary from the storm” and that is so right. I have built something of my own and made it mine and don’t want to apologize for it’s extravagance. It is because I say it is, I want because I choose to want.

There is no pretending that I have come to this sanctuary a flawed and hurt person, but I am a widow of depression and I would not chosen to come here this way.

But the space is here and the timing is now and who am I to tell it to go away and leave me be?

My secrets I will keep and my life will be doled out in pieces that I chose to share and if that makes me flawed beyond compare I must wonder: am I the only one who feels this way?

Certainly not. But this sanctuary space is mine and I will cherish it for the time I have with it. How can I ever hope to make a difference with my life if I don’t cherish. Cherishing is my hope.

*these are merely thought pieces I’ve written in my offline diary and a narrative, I think, would detract from the raw feelings I hope to have presented here*