I'm wide awake right now, my mind is racing through memories and feelings of the past. Things I want to forget, feelings I never want to remember. My first bad memory is of a cousin, who often tried to molest me. We were about the same age, but I was so weak, and he was so heavy. There was nothing I could do on my own to free myself from him. I'd be in the basement at my grandmother's and suddenly everyone would be gone. The first time this happened I was trying to go up the stairs, trying to get past him. He wouldn't let me, he kept trying to touch me and kiss me and I panicked. I did the only thing I could think to do. You see I tried calling for my sister but she never came. I'd call for my cousin Kim and she came every single time I called. She saved me many times, and I am forever thankful for that. I never told anyone. I held it in, buried it. Secretly relieved when he went to juvenile prison. No more fighting with no luck, no more being afraid of being alone in the basement. It was strange to love the family member who caused you to feel such shame and fear. We once went to visit him while he was locked up, I don't know why I agreed to go I had nothing to say to him. Maybe deep down I hoped he would apologize for what he'd done, but in his mind... it never happened. I would see him again after we were grown. He'd been in a out of jail so much it didn't dawn on me that he would possibly show up at his mothers house. Again, I was alone, the fear right there in my throat, there would be no one to call this time. There would be no way to defend myself because time had not made me stronger, nor was he any less fat. However, just like that day in mini prison he acted as if nothing had happened. I still can't say his name. I saw a picture of him and broke down in tears. I wish I had known then the pattern my inactions would create. But that's a story for another day.
Random conversations at work tend to be the best sort of conversations. One such conversation occurred last week that has been on my mind ever since. In true ADHD fashion, I cannot tell you how this conversation came about. I can only tell you that by the conclusion of that conversation, I have been contemplating deeply on my bucket list. Two of the three of us had bucket lists, can you guess which person didn't have one? Yes, that would be me. Oddly enough, during my recent vacation to Tennessee with my best girlfriends, the mention of go-karting as something on one of their bucket lists didn't get this sort of response out of me. In fact, I thought it was cute that that was one of the things on their list. So, why was last week's conversation different? Why was that the moment I thought about what was on mine, and did I actually have one? It's taken a week to figure it all out, but this is what I came up with. First, I didn't even know what should go on my bucket ...
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