"You know nothing of hell"

My life has never been easy, it’s never been just ‘good’. And when things are good now, I feel guilty. I wait and wonder when the other shoe is going to drop. When is it all going to end? When is that sinking feeling and knowing going to return?

I think about how far I’ve come and I’m in awe, and so grateful. But then I look again, and while some things have changed drastically others haven’t changed at all. And I feel stuck. Like I’m still sixteen.

I in no way am not grateful for the light. For my salvation from Moria. I never take that for granted. Every time I’m pulled back, every time I have to face the darkness on my own, and the orcs and the goblins and even the trolls, I never take for granted that this time around it’s different. That feeling of absolute despair was replaced by a light. And while the light may dim and waver, it never goes out. And it is the one thing I hold on to. No matter how long I stay in Moria. No matter how long it takes me to get out. There is light.

I never asked for any of this. I never asked to be strong. I am strong because I have to be. I don’t have a choice. And that strength, that gets me out of Moria that allows me to survive, makes me hard and ‘un-approachable’. I can’t smile at strangers. It’s that self defence mechanism that kicks in. So every time I see a cute guy on the train, I give the bitch face stare.

I don’t want to be like that. I have to. You would be like that too if you had to fight trolls and goblins in your spare time.  You would be like that too if you really knewevil.

I sometimes wish that my mother raised me to know how to catch a husband and not be strong. Have him fight for me. I’ll be in the tower; I have no problem with that. I’m exhausted. A tower holiday is something that I would love right now.

And I look at these women, who fight for independence as if they know what that word means. And it’s only those women who’ve lived all their lives under the watchful gaze of their fathers and brothers then their husbands that can want that type of freedom. They never had to fight goblins. They never had to be strong.

And the worst thing about being that way is that the moment you let go. The moment you decide not to be strong, you make the wrong decision. And then have to deal with that for the rest of your life.

All I have ever had to be was strong, and now hard. And I wonder, if we are always being prepared for the future. What am I being prepared for?