I have begun to throw the big R word around, among close friends, the word Recovery....

Friends say, I just needed self esteem, assertiveness, my niche....I have found these things in nursing school..it became apparent that nurses HAD to be assertive, that I needed that not only as a nurse but as a young woman, as a friend, as a leader of the Depression Bipolar Support Alliance..so I reached deep down inside and found myself ever so slowly asserting myself, stating the things I have never been or never were. People tended to pick on me, and now, when they did, I point out, but, my step-sisters igonre me and I do not them. I ask them about their lives and they do not ask about mine. Or, when people say, you were fired from a lot of jobs, I say, all 58 of the times I was fired were all different, subjective reasons, I never did anything outwardly wrong, they seemed to sense there was something inwardly wrong, hence firing me..

...............................................I do nothing outwardly wrong now..my brother says, I have changed the way I present myself, the way I line up my personality......the transformation is smooth and complete..

I am acheiving good grades in nursing school, performing well on the labs, even leading the student nurse association...

Yes I am haunted by the emptiness of my past, my hollow old personality, and write and journal about this past a great deal..

Yet I do feel my past is my past yet what I have now is a beautiful, vivid, present moment, which is leading as we speak into a beautiful and even brighter future....

Maybe recovery will never be fully mine, maybe it is the journey, not the destination...

And oh what a beautiful journey it is..