My letter to the world

"This is my letter to the world,/That never wrote to me." Emily Dickinson


Last Monday, I liberated myself from my job of five and a half years to set out on a new adventure. Rather than continuing to allow others to define my future, I've decided to define it for myself.

I have been a writer since I was in elementary school. I'm not sure at what age I began, but I remember my first story. I wrote about the origin of bluebonnets and brown-eyed susans. It was a complete fantasy with dancing girls and laughing trees.

My first poem was about a rose. Do you want to hear it?

My velvet rose,
Standing there in her soft, gentle pose,
Turning in her small, frail way,
Until she dies and fades away.

Too depressing for a little girl? You haven't heard anything, yet.

My childhood can be summed up in three words:
Imagination,
Tears,
Nightmares.

I have vivid memories of my nightmares. I can recall the images even to this day. Foxes hunting me; snakes lashing out at me; lonely, deserted planets; war; dogs with red eyes; stark, white labyrinths; and water. Always water. Water of all shapes, sizes, depths, colors...

In dreams, water symbolizes emotions, and the qualities of the water reveal the state of those emotions. The water in my dreams was always changing, drowning me, moving me, pushing me, forcing me. That was how it felt to be awake, too. Drowned in emotion. Uncontrollable. Pushed to the brink, and plunging feet first into darkness.

My mom used to scold me to "get control" of myself, but I couldn't. I really couldn't. My heart would race, it felt like fire in my brain, my whole body was possessed by anger and despair. I hated it, but I couldn't stop it from happening.

When I was little and I awoke from these nightmares, I would be paralyzed at first, but once I regained my faculties, I would climb down from the top bunk, race through the dark living room, and stand by my mother's bedside begging her to let me in. I would lay beside her, nearly falling off the edge, and stare at the dark room until I was forced to blink. She would snore, but, as long as her arm was around me, I felt mostly safe.

My nightmares continued into my teens. In fact, even in my early twenties, they plagued me. I felt like a fool at that age crawling in bed with my mom, but a girl does what she has to. When I lived on my own and I had nightmares, I would turn on the lights and pray - beg - God to take the nightmares away.

After five years of therapy, I became a novice at interpreting dreams and learned that my dreams could be very instructive.

The last nightmare I had was in my late twenties, after I had been married for a couple of years. I awoke one night screaming. That had never happened before. Before, I had always been paralyzed. The only thing I remember from the dream was the anger in my mother's eyes as she glared at me and my mouth opening wide to scream at her to stop.

The dream clarified for me the years of emotional abuse I endured. That abuse, combined with adolescence and the massive fluctuations in my hormone levels, triggered the diagnosis I finally received two years ago: Bipolar Disorder 2. My mom probably had it, too, or at least she had something like it.

I have made many rash decisions before. Impulsive decisions based solely on my emotions. Recently, and for once in my life, I made a dramatic life change after carefully considering all ramifications, just like a rational person, while also honoring my emotional "gut" feelings.

So, I quit my job a week ago. It's time for me to take control of my future, to define my own destiny rather than allowing others to do it for me. Not my mom, not my husband, not my daughter, father, sister, brother, teacher, lover, friend.... Just me.

This is my life. And I came here to share it with you. Will you join me?