Finding My Voice

Today, as I was scrolling around World Pulse, reading everyone's entries I As over come with a feeling of hope. I don't often experience hope, that powerful hope that builds within your gut and spreads throughout your body, so rich that it begins to make you feel as if your floating. A kind of hope that invigorates you to keep moving, no matter what the obstacle. Being the youngest, and the only girl in my family I have lived in what feels like a pressure cooker for the past ten years. My brothers all had long tern relationships- why don't I have a boyfriend? My brothers all played varsity sports- why not me? My brothers all managed to do everything, what seemed like effortlessly- why was it so hard for me to do it? I realized it a few years ago, I had more to do than they did. Not only was I supposed to do everything they did, everything they do, I was supposed to do it in heels with a smile on my face, while working, and do anything in my power to start a family.

That is not who I am.

I received a card last year in the mail that said \"Never fail to always be the wild and wondrous things that you are\" and that statement has pulled me through this last year of divorce, moving, debt, and loss but I could and can feel myself slipping back into that place where I don't understand. In the past year I have had serious conversations with all of my brothers and we now have come to an understanding of what it means to have a sister, I am not one of the boys- you can not hit me, names do hurt my feelings, and no, I do not want to drink beer and watch the football game. The stories I read on World Pulse inspire me, and the heading on top is what really pumped that load of hope back into me. NO ONE SPEAKS FOR ME. I SPEAK FOR MYSELF.