The State of Me  

When I walked into a 7th grade class for the first time, my teacher, who I still talk with, said I carried a chip on my shoulder, a rather large chip. It's hard to hide that chip when you hate the world. 7th grade was a rough year, one of the roughest. Aside from the transition from elementary school to junior high, I had to deal with problems at home. The problems at home darkened my life and the world to a point where there was very little light that I could see. I desperately clung to a future, I hoped and prayed, that would bring better days.

Eight years later, when I met my best friend for the first time, I still carried that chip. I was angry and defensive. I was set off at the drop of a hat. But my best friend helped chip away at the chip. Though I pushed her away, hurt her, and tried to chip away at it myself, I soon realized I was fighting a battle I couldn't fight alone.

When I became closer to a former co-worker last semester, she told me that when she first met me, she knew I had experienced "a tragic past." While she didn't mention seeing a chip, she mentioned seeing walls I had built up, walls built up very high and very deep. The walls and my "smart ass" comments were easy identifiers for her to pinpoint that I had experienced "a tragic past."

When I was 12, 20, and 25, I had significant experiences that reminded me that even though I had run as fast and as far away as I could from a past that was all too tragic, I couldn't run away from everything. And though I have had many experiences and daily realizations of this, these three experiences and/or friendships are ones I reflect on often.

The state of me is that I am still too angry, too defensive, too impulsive and too insensitive. I still carry a chip and the walls I've built up are tall and deep and will be around for a lot longer. The state of me is that I have learned many defense mechanisms which are destroying precious friendships and I can't just choose to not do what I've learned to do and what I've been doing most of my life. The state of me is that I hate hurting the people I love and yet I do it all of the time. The state of me is that I have a mountain to climb and I'm scared to death the people I need to climb with me won't be there. The state of me is that when I am hurt, I hurt back, and I get to a bad place I can't afford to go to.

The state of me is that I am a survivor and just trying to navigate this world. The map I use isn't perfect and has led me to some bad places, but I keep moving on, trying to find where I belong and trying to discover who I am while on this journey.

"You can't fail if you don't give up." The Last Kiss