Are you RAD?

You speak at me, not to me. You use words without meaning. The emphasis is clear, the respect is absent.  You are part of a greater collective, yet you claim you stand alone. No. No, you are not unique. You have existed since the beginning of time. Claiming I am a witch for my thinking and knowledge, you burned me at the stake. Claiming I was unstable because of my emotions, you institutionalized me. You saw my body first, so you sold me or bought me and did as you pleased with my body. I am beautiful, I am ugly. I am too thin, I am too fat. I am too tall, I am too short. I am too pale or too dark or too loud or too strong or too too too... No, you have always existed. But you would not exist save my womb. My vagina that birthed you into this existence. Perhaps one day you will overcome this and then truly dominate. It is more likely that I will become stronger. More resilient. More capable of standing up for myself. I will learn to fight...clean or dirty. I will not

The past couple of months have been a whirlwind. No, that's not quite right. Perhaps an F5 tornado is a more fitting description. I could probably write an entire book just on the past few months, but in many ways I cannot for the life of me think of why it would matter. Most of it I have dealt with, some I am still working to understand. But at the core of it all, my base support remains steady. I suppose that sometimes all you can hope for is a strong cellar door to block out the worst, and hope nothing comes crashing through. That door is beat to hell right now, but it held. And for that I am thankful.  In brief - I ran my first marathon (freaking amazing), turned 34, had a lovely and quiet Christmas with my spouse/kiddos/dog. I missed my NASM cert by one point and I am currently studying to re-take...talk about an ego blow when you have a PhD. Cue eye roll. My tantrum about that lasted a day before I reminded myself that I can do better anyway. My daughter turned 2, where doe