These things keep circling around my mind when I forget to think about something else:

I used to weigh over 100lbs more than I do now.

My home caught on fire and I couldn't live there anymore and I spent weeks with no home and everything I owned fit in my car and I was alone.

I fell in love with a man that didn't know how to love me back. I let him hurt me over and over again. I wanted things he couldn't or wouldn't give me. He didn't want to have me. He didn't want to let me go.

I grew up with parents addicted to prescription drugs. They were everything awful a drug addict becomes. They made me feel unsafe. They made me feel unworthy of love, attention, respect, or consideration.

Each of these things brought me to tears. Made me have moments where I didn't feel strong enough to make it through by myself. A few times I even wished that I could just stop existing. That somehow I wouldn't have to face another day. Because if life had to keep hurting the way it hurt back then, I didn't want anymore. Sometimes these things twisted my personality, perception of the world, self-perception, reactions, and expectations in unhealthy ways. They nearly broke me.

I say this not because I want sympathy or help or anything else like that. Its just, I cannot tell you just how free I feel now if you don't understand the things that weighed me down.

I could go into detail about each thing. I could cry again, remembering those days, those nights. But right now, I'm sitting in MY apartment. And I feel safe and secure. I feel loved and appreciated. I am happy with who I am and where my life is headed. I'm going to have bad days. And I'll forget, eventually, just how sharp the pain was before.

But I remember today.