Bravery - reposted from Facebook

My mother told me that I was brave for posting the stuff I've posted here on Facebook. I wholly disagree with that. Personally, I think the bravest thing is that I post without thinking about grammar or punctuation. I feel my words and write them. Sharing your feelings isn't the stuff of bravery - it is the stuff of necessity. The world needs us to all share our emotions - bottling them up has caused cataclysmic eruptions.

Until now. This note will take all of my courage. Reading this note might take some of yours. Together let us hold hands and move forward. Here goes, no turning back now.

When I was in my junior year of high school, I fell in love with a boy. The emotion at the time was so strong and pure that I didn't know what to do with it. I broke his heart, and my own within a very short span of time. I then proceeded to adopt a lot of self-destructive behavior. I went the opposite of love.

I started hanging with the wrong crowd. I started cutting classes - not to live happily in the theater - but to go self-destruct all over the city with my new found "friends".

One night my friend called me and said she'd had it with her mom and just wanted to sneak out. So, I went with her. I got in this big blue Blazer with 4 guys and my friend and we did what we did every weekend. We cruised up and down Fullerton. Someone lit a joint, and said that they were stopping at the liquor store on Central Park and Fullerton. "WE NEED BEER." I went along for the ride.

I stayed in the car and my friend went inside the liquor store with one of the guys. They came out with the liquor and they drank beer but my friend and I drank some hideously evil crap called "Mad Dog 20/20". Red Banana Mad Dog 20/20. If hell sprung a leak, this shit would flow.

Time passed, and I passed out. When I came to, one of the guys was over me - high fiving one of the other guys. I didn't understand. I didn't understand until I saw one guy get off of me and zip up and another one climb on. And that's when I left my body, for the first time.

I floated high above myself, and watched a massive amount of horror take place. I didn't feel it, I just watched. I didn't feel angry or like a victim, though I clearly was. I was floating there and understanding that this was happening to me for a reason. This was the TIME of TIMES. This was the great crossroads in my life where I am to understand who I really am. And I went higher. I saw pain everywhere, and love everywhere. I saw the world like a speck covered in light and dark.

I didn't blame anyone. I didn't blame myself for being drunk and a fool. I didn't blame them for being violent and evil. I didn't blame my friend for leaving me alone with them. I didn't blame God for it. There was no blame. There was only the world, and the Universe.

I saw myself as an angel. I was an angel - armorless with a quiver full of arrows of love. There was evil around my physical body and here I was floating high above it with my quiver and bow. I felt for the men that were having a jolly fun time beating and abusing me and conceiving a child inside me. I felt an immense sadness for how could one love themselves so little as to inflict any kind of torture on another human being?

I went back into my body and to a Port-a-John that was nearby. I was covered in urine and blood and fluids. I walked to Fullerton, finding my friend who'd left me and she and I walked together. A car pulled over that saw us. Two men were in that car and they let us in and took us to the closest place where we could find a phone. I smelled of urine and vomit and they didn't care. I was their chance to live the greatest good that night. They were my miracle and I was their ability to be one.

I still don't know who they were, and I hope they are some where continuing to spread love and light. I hope they know the greatest truth about themselves. They too were armorless angels, and they lanced me with their arrow of love.

I thank them.
And thank you, for sharing this with me and letting me be brave - now the emails I've received mirroring the words my mother spoke will ring true.

This note is dedicated to 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men.
And to every angel who stands armorless with a quiver full of love.