I was five years old the first time that somebody explored my body in a way that didnāt feel right to me. I froze, every single cell in my body knew it was wrong, but I froze. That same day we were walking, our parents just ahead of us and I couldnāt hold it back anymore because my insides were screaming at me, screaming at me to say something screaming at me to do something to make sure that this would never happen again, my shadow, my sweet sweet shadow was ready to howl. The words flowed freely and with conviction from my lips: āWhat happened was wrong and I didnāt like it, Iām gonna tell our parentsā I turned around and walked towards our Moms, and like the scared little boy that he was; afraid of getting in trouble for his curiosity because he knew it was wrong too, he came up behind me. I felt him before his menacing whisper met my ear, āGo ahead, go ahead and tell them. They wonāt believe you anyways, and even if they do believe you, theyāre going to be mad at you and theyāre gonna hate you for what youāve done.ā My feet skidded to a halt and in my memory I can still see the dust gathering around them. I froze⦠I became as still as a glacier and that was the first moment I fractured from my shadow, and I silenced her. That was the moment I didnāt allow her to protect me, that was the moment I chose to believe him. What if they did get mad at me? What if they did hate me? I couldnāt bare the thought of my own mother hating me. Of my father looking at me and not seeing his perfect little princess. So I grabbed my shovel, the one I often used to build sand castles, and I dug. I dug and I dug and I dug. I buried her so deep inside of the confines of my mind where she stay caged crying, pleading with me to let her out, to let her speak.. please she cried, āTheyāre going to listen, they will help us, please let me try.ā But I couldnāt take the chance, the fear had me paralyzed. So there she stayed buried. Left behind by my conscious mind. From the recesses of my psyche, she would generate more experiences like this one hoping, praying, believing that I would take the chance to unite with her and to speak, to scream NO! To stand up for myself, and to live my truth because as much as I blamed her for the hell that we were living, it was heaven that she was here to create. She loved me so much, and she believed in me more than I even believed in myself at that time. For someone that I constantly blamed, and throughly despised, shrouded in shame, there may be nobody that loves me as unconditionally as she does. It was this year I decided to start again. It was this year that I took her hand and all I felt from her was forgiveness and gratitude, every time I spoke these truthful whispers I would feel like I was going to die. Terrified, my voice would shake because part of me still believed him. Fear tried to consume me projecting these false realities where I was either dead, or experiencing an existence worse than death for speaking, and I would tremble my bones literally shaking, my breath erratic and scarce. Ironically every time I chose to let truth emanate from the vibrations of my vocal chords, the opposite would happen, I would feel amazing, I would feel free.