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30 Day Blogging Challenge - Learning to Overcome

Write about a time you learned something new. Use and highlight at least 3 words in your entry that are not part of your normal vocabulary and provide your readers with definitions for those words.

I'm constantly learning. If there's one thing in life I've learned the most, it's that being educated has literally saved my life. Otherwise, I probably would have turned into some variation of my parents. When I was fourteen and in a group home while my father served a prison sentence, I was faced with a choice. I could give in to my circumstances and let them swallow me up as so many before I had done and would continue to do or I could fight past my circumstances and refuse to yield to them. You can probably guess I chose the fighting path.

Fight I did. I fought the legal system and social services who wanted to return custody to my father (I lost). I fought homelessness for more than a decade (I eventually won). I fought sexism. I fought stereotypes. I fought to educate myself, first with my GED, then with college courses. I fought to advance my career and become elite in my skillset. I fought back my parents' abuse. I fought PTSD. I fought depression. I fought against incest. I fought rape. What did all these battles teach me? Strength. Perseverance. The sheer unadulterated power of will. They taught me to be humble. Life has a way of teaching you're not as strong as you think you are.

For years I was pugnacious in my strength, ready to combat the world at any time. It was as if an angry beast lived inside my chest, trying to punish the world for disregarding me. It was angry for all the times I'd been ignored or looked beyond. I was a female version of Hulk. Inside I was angry for people who turned a blind eye to reports of bruises and a father who disappeared for days at a time only to return drunk. I was angry most of all at the two people who gave me life and then destroyed me.

Educating myself made the beast quiescent. Therapy taught me to control and accept both my emotions and the inherent dichotomy within us all. I learned to accept both the good and the bad within me. I acknowledged it within others as well. I came to accept and forgive the world for not caring about me and realized few really could. I'm among the faceless millions. And I'm okay with that. I create what change I can, send it out into the world and let the ripples happen as they will. I learned to wield my writing as both sword and shield.

For me, it's not possible to write about learning one thing. My life is about learning. I've learned to learn always, in every possible circumstance. I'll never stop. That's what life has taught me.


Definitions
Pugnacious: inclined to quarrel or fight readily; quarrelsome; belligerent; combative.

quiescent: being at rest; quiet; still; inactive or motionless:

dichotomy: division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups:




Charity Marie
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