The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
-Maya Angelou
CHAPTER THREE
Sometime during the following weeks, I was sitting on the floor of our apartment making a list. I wrote down all the things I wanted to do in life: run a marathon, drive a big yellow bus full of happy children, learn to play the guitar and have a close family. The list was a pretty accurate expression of my heart while simultaneously showing how small I understood my world of possibilities to be. When I made this list, I was thinking Big. Reflecting on it now, I realize how many invisible walls and ceilings were there for me, as a woman living in a patriarchal cultural but not only that—as a woman with a history of severe, chronic child abuse. All of which contributed to keeping my mind from even wandering places it should have freely roamed.
For me, part of my trauma debt was a desperate need for connection. Another part of that debt were limitations in thoug…