body ache.

i am at a point where i am realizing the connection between body, mind, and soul. because of what i have been going through lately my body has internalized all the pain and is now reacting. i am experiencing something that i haven't experienced in a while. though i have had the opportunity to take a walk down memory lane to see how things are all connected from childhood to high school to college to family to today. i am able to see the connections within each step and am grateful that it has prepared me for whatever changes are about to take place.

within a place of pain, there is growth. i can only hope that my body will be able to survive.

when i was a child i remember receiving my first journal. i don't know where the pain was coming from when i wrote - "i hate my family!!" i wasn't sure what provoked me to write those words at such a young age. we cannot protect ourselves from lies because we will have to face them one day or another. that entry opened the door to my distrust and feelings of abandonment. my parents struggled to give my sisters and i the "american dream." they wanted to provide something that they wanted for themselves as they were growing up. my dad took the navy entrance test three times until finally in 1974 he passed. he was 6 months shy of vietnam. my mom was an accountant in the philippines carrying her first born child. while my dad went to the states, my mother raised my 2 sisters with the help of our families.

in 1976, my dad rented a small apartment in oxnard, bought a car, and picked up my family from lax. i was born 7 years later, a final attempt at a boy. i was born into a family of tres marias. our lives were complicated as we all tried to adjust to this new lifestyle. i was questioning my sense of belonging in this family seeing as how i was the only who wasn't born in the philippines. by birth i was american.

there are so many secrets that if we keep it in our souls begin to deteriorate.