25 years ago this month

I know the answer to Rita's question: What do you want to do in the coming year? Without a doubt in my mind, I want to break free of the bonds of my past and live free, and whole. 25 years ago this month, Demming stood over me as I slept, casting a shadow that has covered my soul ever since. When she entered my bed and touched me and put my hands upon her, she shattered the child I was, and though I put the shards of my identity back together as best I could, a seed was planted, and something dark and twisted grew up and flourished in my mind. I may never be able to root it all out...but I am not going to give up trying. 25 years is too long to rent space in my soul to a sexual predator and my own survivor's guilt. I learned that to endure the unendurable, I had to find pleasure in what we did, and I endured it because I wanted to live. I wanted to live, and I am alive; Ryan didn't, and isn't. It is time to move on, is time to let go, of the guilt, the shame, the rage, the distrust. It is time.