how do I know?

The truth is, I do not know. There is no way of knowing and knowing what I know now and putting it together with what happened then. And knowing how I felt and then how I forgave and then forgot and then trusted... and now look what's happened. Your trust gets dragged through the nastiest muck you can ever imagine.

All of this makes me wonder if I want to have children. Do I want to bring them into a world where these types of things can happen to them? My sister is a good parent. She is attentive and loving. But she was also trusting and, because of that, her son was hurt. And I'm still having a hard time thinking of him as a MONSTER because, deep down, I know that he's not a bad person. Not all the way through. But things will never be the same. Adn I wonder if I'll be able to protect my children adequately from these horrible psyche-destroying travesties that seem to be all too common in my family.

I cry for the person I love. The person I lost. Maybe he was never that person to begin with. I miss the perons that taught me how to drive and helped me take care of my car. I miss the person that took us, the family, out on big summer camping trips fully equipped with big tents and fire pits. And we'd spend our days swimming in Inks Lake and hiking up cactus laden trails to my favorite part of the entire lake -- Devil's Waterhole.

My therapist insists that it's okay for me to feel this week. She tells me that she can only imagine how hard this must be for me; for our family. Knowing that all of these years we essentially lived with two people. And it's hard to distinguish those two people now because the bad has overshadowed so much of the good.

I still have a lot to process. And maybe this isn't square one all over again; but it is certainly a large step backwards that I never dreamed I would be taking.

One day at a time.