I thought I would publish part of my up coming book intro to fab 5 followers – so here goes nothing – Book Intro “People can take everything away from you but they can never take away you truth.“ – My Perogative, Britney Spears, (Metrolyrics) I started this book on my 39th birthday. Why, now, after all these years? The answer is simply because the things I experienced, my story as a girl, haunts me everyday. It is my past but, because through adversity we learn. I seems throughout my life I have learned the most through the worst times. I want to let go of my past, at least the ghosts, and keep the lessons, move on, to the find closure, that has for so many years eluded me as a person. Yet, I know, I will never truly move on and that is okay, I am who I am today because of my past. All the insecurities, the pain, but I found strength and me along the way. Are there things I would change about who I am at 39? Definitely! But would I change my past, knowing what I now know? I am not sure I would. Because the things I would change about myself now, are not the things that define me as a human. I am sensitive, to a fault, which made my childhood even more difficult. I could never let go, and I always internalized what was going on around me, many times, in my mind, making it my own fault, even though I was just a child of circumstance is so many ways. But for better or for worse, my childhood brought me here. To where I am now. I still struggle with feelings of inadequacy, with accepting love, with wanting to please people, so that they will love me, searching to find something I feel I lost, but was never truly mine. Somehow, through all of this, I managed to find love with an amazing husband, have three beautiful children, and get an education. So when my mind tells me I will never be more that that lost little girl, I now know that I am so much more, yet I am still her too, and unfortunately I still need the reminding. Though, she lingers, haunts, and sometimes prowls, dragging me back into dark places. I won’t lie, someday the dark she wins. I am not foolish enough to think that writing this book will keep my past from haunting me, but I am hoping that this experience is carthartic and brings me to a balance between yesterday and today. I want my past to empower me as a person, to inspire empathy and understanding within me, but to never make me doubt my own worth. Which it still does, scarily so, each day. If I can even distract the negative thoughts left behind from childhood more effectively, then I have a chance at happiness here and there.