She Will Be Loved

I know there are starving kids in Africa and all but my life has taken a turn that I don't understand and can't get my head around and no one from my world can either. On the outside I look a certain way and my life appears a certain way but it's all a facade. And I can't keep it up anymore. I can't hold it in. I must let it out otherwise it will swallow me and drown me. Anyway, with all of the mood swings and twitching and super-human energy, it is impossible to hide.

Thing is, I have no choice but to be here in this foreign land, on my island and others can call and visit but I can never leave. So to get emails from my aunt and my cousin expressing discomfort in my revealing personal information made me feel weird. If I didn't reveal it, I would be hiding who I am. This stuff is my identity, just as much as my identity is being a sister, a daughter, a friend, a cousin, a lawyer, a runner, a reader etc. From my cousin, "I cannot begin to understand how you feel (although, the BLOG oozes sadness) but is there a bright side of life that you can focus on?? Like REALLY focus on?" "I am slighty overwhelmed by the blog. I find it confusing as to how you have made your life so public. Its almost too intense for me." My aunt commented that, "Who would've thought all these things (good and bad) could've happened to little ol' you? Some of it, I feel, should be on a "need to know" basis, but if it helps you to write about it, then fair enough. I just wonder about telling total strangers all these things ... that is, if your blog is accessible to total strangers???"

Unfortunately, this stuff has made me who I am. And since I do feel mortal for the first time in my life, I need to share who Briana is, otherwise no one will ever know. And write, "BRIANA WAS HERE," in the sand on the shore of my island. The major events in my life have been getting raped, getting two abortions, losing two babies, a broken engagement, being really sick and right now being a veritable science experiment, my grandmother dying. I wear this stuff like a badge of honor yet no one sees it unless I tell them. I am hiding everything that has shaped me into the person they are interacting with. I am hiding all of the major events of my life. I have scars on my knee from my knee surgery but the scars from everything else lay in my heart and no one sees them. I wish they did. Instead I have to tell people so people know me and understand me and understand why I am how I am. It is too much effort to hide and pretend all the time. Hiding it takes more effort than I can muster. I spent years in hiding. Now, there is too much of it to pretend it never happened or brush it off. And the more I let it out, the less I have to carry. Now others can anticipate and understand and know me and suddenly walls come down and there is a draw-bridge for the moat around my lonely castle.

The truth is, there are starving kids in Africa, but I am different from my peers in my world and from who I should be or from the outside appear to be or from who I used to be and I am no longer able to act or fake or pretend. I know what no one else knows. I have seen what no one else sees. I see mortality staring me in the face. I am on chemotherapy. I spent last weekend in the emergency room. Every time I get off antibiotics I get some other godforsaken infection. I have felt the euphoria of being pregnant and engaged to someone I love and feeling that it should be illegal to be so happy. I have also been betrayed by my body so many times over since then, my body that looks so healthy and normal. I have been raped with my boyfriend lying next to me passed out with me kicking him trying to rouse him to no avail.

How do I keep these things inside and act like a normal girl? Maybe other people can. And until now, I always have. I don't know if it worked for me then but I know that this illness has pushed me over the edge. It's time for me to talk. It's time for me to be me. And for me to be okay with who that person really is. My cup runneth over.

I am spilling over with my secrets. They are me and I am them. If you want to know me love me be my friend you have to know my secrets. They aren't really secrets. They are my badges of honor. I have survived them and continue to thrive despite them. They have made me smarter. They have taught me how to enjoy life. They have enabled me to live in the moment. They have allowed me to connect with others in ways I never could before. They have made me into a fighter who doesn't give a shit. They are me. And if you love me, you love my imperfections and my messes and my scars, even the ones you can't see.