TSM.

Trapped. Suffocated. Misguided.

I am a woman married to a man who loves me for all I am. He sees the best in me even when I am in doubt of myself.

I am a mother to two beautiful children. They define my world.

Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis thing. Or maybe, just maybe… I really am caught up in a whirlwind of changes that I can’t seem to match pace with.

Too many deaths this year. It isn’t so much the death that triggers this feeling that I have yet to understand –they are all finally at peace. It is the fact that it has become too familiar.

I remember my first funeral. I was 22. Since then I have attended a handful more and while their death has tugged at my spirit none has affected me more than Muriel’s. She wasn’t a best-friend, but she was one of my very few close friends. Oh, the conversations we used to have. Her death has made me question my belief in faith and in life. I have suffered countless nights beating myself up with blames I shouldn’t have put on myself. I was slowly beginning to heal.

Two more deaths in the family. Only a few weeks apart.

I come from a very broken home. I met my parents for the first time when I was 9 years of age. No, I wasn’t adopted. I miss the woman that gave me life but I hate her all the same. No, I hate her more than I long to rebuild build what we never had.

I strive to become a mother that I have always needed. To do the complete opposite of her. It is by the grace of God that I met my step-mother. She has filled that void and has become a mother for a young woman in need of guidance. Right now, she needs me.

I am in the process of chasing after my dreams. To solve and innovate. To prove that despite my struggles of self acceptance I am worthy. But I have realized that these dreams are holding me back more than it defines me. Obsessed over proving to the world that I am invisible in, I find myself in constant worry of tomorrow. Slowing down and breathing for the moment seems to have become lost thought.

Trapped. Suffocated. And misguided.

I need to relish the blessings in my life. I have been blessed far more than I deserve.