Landfill Rings and Unlikely Friends

My father was 23 years old, a recent college grad with shaggy blonde hair and big aviator glasses, when he decided that he was going to marry the brilliant brunette he had known his entire life. He bought her a beautiful gold ring and promised to love her forever. Her strength, her determination, her beauty - ALL of her, until his last day. And fifteen years and two children later, he loved her all the same. Or more. But one seemingly ordinary day in the mid-1990s, that wedding ring would be thrown into the trash, never to be seen again.

Papa and Momma Bear - 1983

To clarify: my parents have been happily married for nearly 30 years. Their partnership is something unmatched by any other couple I have ever seen. They balance each other to near perfection. So no, the ring was not thrown into the trash in the middle of an all-out, no-holds-barred argument. To this day, I have yet to see my parents have a serious fight. Props on keeping minimal drama in our house, Mom and Dad. You rock.

I was the one who threw away my mother's wedding ring. It wasn't out of anger. It wasn't some evil plot to get even with my mother for not letting me have seconds on dessert. It was a mistake. Plain and simple. I was learning to count money so I went looking through her purse for spare change. In my attempt to de-clutter my mother's purse, to help free her busy life from one less task, I tossed what I thought was a used Kleenex into the garbage. What I didn't know was that my mother had an allergic reaction that made her hands swell so she had taken off her ring, wrapped it neatly in a tissue, and secured it in a small pocket of her purse to "keep it safe." But it still wound up in the trash, then a garbage truck, and eventually a landfill next to God knows what. 

Off to learn my numbers, letters, money counting... ughh :(

I've heard that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Throwing my mother's wedding ring was the first, but surely wasn't the last, of many decisions in my life that paved my way to Hell so to speak. From the day I threw that ring in the garbage to this very moment, wearing a wedding ring of my own, I would estimate that I have made about 3,736 oopsies. Some big. Some small. Some mean spirited. Some unintentional. Some careless. Some meticulously planned but oopsies nonetheless. 

One of my greatest uh-oh moments to date caused a smart, beautiful 16-year-old's first heartbreak. Long story short, I was a gullible, selfish brat. I was in my senior year of high school. I didn't think past the weekend. Despite my own instincts and better judgment, I took a silly boy at his word and ended up being a player in an evil little game of lies and jealousy and resentment that would carry on for years. And though I denied my responsibility in what happened for far too long, I can admit now that I made a mistake. I didn't respect myself or other relationships enough to keep my distance. 

I was surely paving my road to Hell. We both were, me and that beautiful 16-year-old girl. We tortured each other with awful nicknames and rumors. We armed ourselves with evil stares and catty whispers every time we were in the same room. But underneath it all, beneath the jealousy and disrespect and pettiness, was a common denominator - the same thing that is at the root of almost any argument - FEAR. Fear of being hated. Fear of being ignored. Fear of being misunderstood. Fear of being talked about behind your back. Fear that the things being said to your face are true. Fear of never having the right answers to make it better. Fear of not being good enough.  

But the most beautiful moments can happen in the middle of all that fear. Grace happens. Redemption happens. Understanding happens. Time mellowed both of us to a point that we dropped the insults and drama. When we realized just how time consuming and mind numbing the backstabbing and insult hurling could be, we stopped hating each other and realized just how similar we were. One of the greatest lessons I've learned is that, with time and forgiveness, even the most bitter rivals can turn into the most trusted friends. 

 

This is life: where flaws are expected and mistakes are inevitable. The best we can do is keep learning and growing. Own up to your imperfection and remember that there are lessons to be learned in every uh-oh and every oopsie. Take some of my lessons to heart... Double check before you throw things in the trash. Try not to call anything "f**king bullshit" in front of your mother. Remember that two wrongs never make a right. Never use oven mitts with holes in them. Make note that speeding in Minnesota is much more expensive than in North Dakota. Trust that important words left unspoken will leave an aching in your chest. Learn how to sincerely apologize when you're wrong. Love exactly who you are, in this moment, and appreciate the stumbles it took to get you there. Trust that no matter what you've done, it gets better. It always gets better. 

To Lauren From Lauren

Alfred Adler, a world renowned and highly respected psychologist, believed that the core of an individual's personality is fairly set in stone by the by the age of 5. Lauren Jean Wold Trefethren, a world citizen and highly respected barista and borderline know-it-all, agrees whole heartedly. 

The core traits of my very being, the signature "Laurenisms" that make up a complex whole, have been there since the days of mid-day naps and snack time. But who am I kidding, I still enjoy a good mid-day nap and snack time. Proving Adler's point. And I'm still stubborn. Sensitive. Worrisome. Loyal. Spontaneous. Genuine. And, displayed so clearly above, unable to stay very serious for very long. 

Yet regardless of our similarities, young Lauren and I have some stark differences. The blonde, freckle faced, preschool version of me concerned herself with the tiniest lies and disloyalties of her friends at recess, working herself into a frenzy and inevitably breaking down into tears. Now, particularly over the past decade, I have been devastated to a point where I forget how to breath. I've had my heart broken. I've attended friends' funerals. I've made mistakes beyond anything little Lauren could have ever imagined. The everyday tragedies of being a teenager and young adult have impacted me to a point that I sometimes feel that I'm losing her, that part of me that was so sure of herself, sure of her relationships, and sure of the world around her. I fear the pain of my past has mellowed me to a point of being jaded and disconnected, the very thing that I swore I would never let happen. So in an attempt to reconnect with that sweet, innocent version of myself, a girl so filled with hope and optimism and just a few years later so much angst and rebellion, I decided to write her this letter.


My Dearest Lauren, 

This is an older, hopefully wiser, you. I'm the same silly girl I was sporting that Barney tee shirt and pencil behind the ear. Good look for you, by the way. And keep on rocking those bangs because they become a trademark. You're 22 now. Married. Buying a house. Happy. And yet, all these years later, your questions are still a part of me: Will I be liked? loved? ignored? lonely? Will I be happy? What will I be when I grow up? 

I hate to break it to poor, inquisitive little Lauren but you may never find the answers to those questions. Some days you will feel liked and, yes, loved - loved so intensely that it will make your heart race and your head spin. You will meet boys who set your world on fire, who make you dance, inspire you to dream bigger. You will marry your best friend. But there will be days, many of them, when you will feel confused. Frustrated. And, your least favorite, lonely. As for what you will be when you grow up, I would love to tell you that you will be a pediatric neurologist like you always wanted but math and science skills are sort of a prerequisite and you missed the memo of where to pick those bad boys up. I can tell you this: Continue to write. Get better and better. This will be your outlet, your therapy, and your passion. I don't know what you will do for a living but I do know that you'll be happy. More days than not, you will feel SO happy and SO blessed.

I'm the same anxious teenage girl I was sitting in that car next to a gorgeous 16-year-old boy, full of insecurities and unlimited potential. How does he see me? What is he thinking? Why was I cursed with these short legs and man hands?

I want to shake you, girl. I want to tell you that her "short" legs are strong legs and you "man" hands are your dad's hands. And that boy, the one that makes your heart pound so loud you're afraid he will hear it, he sees you more accurately than you think: a girl full of insecurities. But he likes you. And what is he thinking? I think you know the answer to that one. He is thinking what most 16-year-old boys think about while alone with a girl in a car. Obviously. But cut him a break. Don't be too hard on him when he makes a mistake. You'll learn too quickly that nothing lasts forever. Not pain. Not jealousy. And not even life. When he apologizes, forgive him. Hug him goodbye. You won't get the chance again.

I'm the same giddy college student I was sitting in the passenger seat of my future husband's car. Where is this going? Does he love me like he says he does? Am I really willing to commit to one person... forever? 

Simply put: it is going somewhere wonderful. YES he loves you - the kind of love you always prayed for. Steady. Unconditional. Strong. That's the kind of love worth committing to.

I know that you're scared. I know that you are filled with doubts and questions that seem suffocating. The best advice I can give you is deceivingly simple but I promise it will help. Be you. Work hard. Call home. Sacrifice. Be smart. Listen for God. Trust your gut. Keep learning. Never lose your humor. Pray. Don't get jaded. Remember to breath. And, above all else, love each moment for what it is and not what you wish it were. That, my dear, is the greatest lesson you will ever learn. 

Love Always, 
Lauren 

P.S. Don't ignore mom and dad's calls when you're at parties. They're not idiots. They'll make you do yard work.. with a hangover.. in the July sun. Just trust me on that.

Tutorial: Bed Head to Classy Updo

I'm straying from my usual anecdotal tales of lessons learned the hard way in order to fulfill a promise to a few of my friends. A few weeks ago, I accidentally created a hairdo that I have since repeated a dozen times. I'm a big fan of cute updos but an even bigger fan of convenience. I hope that this 10 minute updo can be your go-to hairstyle for those morning you're running late but don't want to sacrifice cuteness. :) 

The end result!

1) Start with your hair down. Any texture or style (or lack thereof, in my case) is fine. This doozy right here is my air-dryed, no product mop. Sexxxxy. 

2) Back-comb the top of your hair a bit, to give it a little bit of a "bump." 

3) If newly washed and lacking natural oils (hence: hard to hold in place), spray with some product. You want to have enough product in your hair so that it isn't slipping through your fingers as you work.

4) Pull up the top half or so of your hair and make a half braid (just a plain old braid, nothing French or fancy) down to about your ears. 

 

5) Make a VERY loose ponytail at your neckline. 

6) This part is hard to capture on camera, since I'm not an octopus and am limited to my two lame human arms. You should make a slit above the ponytail and twist the ponytail up and through the slit. 

 

7) The result of the loose ponytail, slit, flip through process should look something like this. Except minus the squirrel looking end... that's unique to yours truly and is in no way required.

8) For longer hair, flip the remaining hair up again, as though you're going to pull the hair through the slit again, but pin it in place instead. For my medium length hair, I bobby pinned the rest of my hair (aka: the squirrel tail) into a messy bun of sorts, wherever it seemed to work best. This part is really open for interpretation using your own hair knowledge of what works best for YOUR hair.

9) Add any clips, pins, feathers, or other accessories you wish! 

10) Enjoy the quickest, easiest updo you could ever imagine. Rock this style with confidence because you, my dear, are gorgeous... even with bed head.

The Town That Built Me

A county road by Lake Sakakawea, home to many a bonfire and sleepless night

I grew up in Beulah, North Dakota, approximately 75 miles from the nearest Starbucks and 10 miles from a movie theater, which, might I add, hosts only two screens. Diversity at its finest. I was a freckle faced teen with two seemingly contradictory feelings about "my" town (as I so arrogantly referred to it): a great deal of hometown pride and the simultaneous urge to get the hell out already. I would sit in my high school sociology class, debating the importance of things that seemed to be so commonsensical to me at the time (i.e. equal rights for all Americans, regardless of race, sexual orientation, religion, or lack there of). But no matter how matter-of-fact I would make myself sound, no matter how many "STOP BEING IGNORANT"s I would throw in there, I felt as if my words were falling on deaf ears. I realize now that my name-calling and finger pointing probably weren't helping me to persuade and "enlighten" the masses. 

By my senior year, that urge to move away grew into a restless fever; I felt like I was suffocating in a town filled with people who knew too much about me, or at least thought they did. I was sick of the labels, the gossip, the judgment, and the rumors. I needed out - STAT. And so I went. I moved four hours away, fell in love with a guy way out of my league, and never moved back - not even for the summers that so many of my friends did. I was loving the life I had in a new place, with new people, and with new information. I never imagined moving back. I still had a soft spot in my heart for all things Beulah but, in all honesty, I was "over" it. I felt I had milked that experience for all it was worth and I was content with leaving it in the dust.

Sommershine Hill: winter days were spent sledding down then huffing and puffing my way back up

I soon learned that you can never quite predict an emotion until you are smack dab in the middle of it. If faced with the hypothetical of my parents moving away from my hometown, selling the house I grew up in, and taking new jobs in a town I knew hardly anything about, I would have told you that I would feel slightly heartbroken at first, probably have a good cry, but that I would quickly applaud my parents for taking that brave new step. In reality, it was the opposite. I was so happy for my parents when they told me that they were moving to Jamestown, about three hours east of my hometown of Beulah, and only about an hour away from my current residence. Good for them, I thought upon hearing the news. It will be so nice having them so close.And don't get me wrong, I am beyond thrilled for my parents. I admire them for taking new jobs across the state when most people their age are thinking about retirement plans.

But today on my drive home from work, buckled in to my Toyota Matrix and thinking about my parents' first week of work for the Jamestown Public Schools, I hear Miranda Lambert's "House that Built Me" on the radio and, suddenly, I am in tears. The man next to me at a red light gives me a look of sympathy. I smile politely through my sobs. He looks away awkwardly, as if he just caught me in the middle of something too personal for a stranger's eyes. 

As I listen to the song, I realize just how many memories were made in that charming little house on Sheila Drive. The new owners have no idea how many times I sat in the closet connecting my sister's bedroom to my own, cup pressed up against the closet door, eavesdropping on her conversations with her countless boyfriends. I, on the other hand, had my chemistry set and my American Girl dolls. Womp womp. They don't know how many apple pies we made from the two apple trees in the backyard or how many hours were spent decorating sugar cookies at the kitchen counter. They don't know how many Christmas cards and prom pictures were taken by the fireplace in the basement. They didn't see the pride on my parent's faces when the new kitchen was finally complete. They have no idea that my ex-boyfriend carried me up those stairs with a broken toe after I kicked him in the shin. Mom and Dad, consider this my formal apology for lying. I didn't "trip" after all, but I'm sure you already knew that. You always did.

The good ol' days when a bunny costume didn't have to be a "sexy" bunny costume. I miss you, childhood.

Until a few months ago, I would have never thought I would miss the wheat fields of Coal Country. I would have never thought that a simple song on the radio would make my heart ache for a place I had cursed so many times.  But I miss it. I miss the way the football field looked in the fall, surrounded by trees hundreds of years in the making, decorated with orange and yellow leaves. I miss wandering around the schools, with the smell of markers and Elmer's glue lingering in the hallways. I miss familiar faces asking how I'm doing and genuinely wanting to hear the answer. I miss the kind of kindness and consideration that you can only find in a town as small as mine, the sort of homegrown sensitivity and "help your neighbor" attitude that inspires fleishkuekle feeds or pancake benefits for any residents in the middle of tough times.

I continue listening as MIranda sings, "Out here it's like I'm someone else, I thought that maybe I could find myself..." No matter how hard I search, I will never find that same sense of home that I used to feel in Beulah. There are moments I wish so badly that I could relive but I realize now that I'm wishing to go back to the way things never were. I heard an expression that goes something along the lines of, "The past is never quite as great as we remember it, the present never as boring, and the future never as scary." I can't get back the innocence and the youth that ran through my veins all those years ago. I can't relive my first kiss, my first dance, the first day at my first job, or my graduation day. What I can do is look back with a smile, thanking God for blessing me with a happy childhood, allowing me to meet some wonderful friends, challenging me with some painful experiences, and leading me to the life I have now. 

Beulah, my dear, we've had some tough times.. a love hate relationship if you will.. but you will forever be my hometown. Thanks for making me the woman I am, for better or worse. I love you for it.

P.S. Go Miners! 

Her Light is Still Shining

On May 25, 2007, my lifelong friend, Amy Kritzberger, wrote me a note containing the following sentence: 

"No matter how many miles we'll be apart, even if the hands of time separate us.. you will FOREVER be my first and one of the greatest best friends I've ever had." 

Though I smiled as I read those words the first time, comforted by the promise of a forever confidant and a continuation of the longest friendship I'd ever had, I was unaware of how much those same words would mean in just a few short months. On August 13, 2007, Amy was killed in a car accident on Highway 49 just ten miles south of our hometown. I remember hearing the news and cursing my mother for even daring to speak such a horrible thing, insisting she was misinformed, relying on my own selfish emotions more than the clear facts in front of me.

She wouldn't leave us. She was the backbone of our class, the reason we all remained so close over the years, the most genuine person I had ever known - she couldn't be gone. But the tears of my classmates, the flowers being placed on her boyfriends van as a makeshift memorial, the hallow feeling in my chest - countless signs kept reminding me that she really was... gone. 

Her words provided comfort when nothing else seemed to work. "No matter how many miles..." and "even if the hands of time separate us..." echoed the kind of intuitive wisdom that Amy always had. And like I always do when I can't find the right words to say, I wrote. The day after Amy died I wrote the following post, a tribute to a girl I grew to love, admire, and respect over our 15 or so years together.

Written August 14, 2007:

"She always told me that you have to live in the moment. Never settle. She was there for me when my heart was broken. She hugged me when I most needed it. She was the one person who knew just what to say at the perfect moment. 

So what do you do when the person who is always there to heal your heart is the person you are grieving for?  She is not here to make this go away.  She's not here to wipe away my tears and make me a burned CD of perfect songs to make me smile.  Our Beautiful Amy is gone and we can't say or do anything to get her back.

When we were only 3 years old, she became my first best friend.  I would crawl over my fence into her backyard and we would spend the whole day together.  We would make french fries in her little toy-oven and drive around in her play car.  

Our first, and only fight, came when we were about 5 or 6 years old.  I don't even know what started it but I remember her friend, Tyrel, flipping me the middle finger at one point... at the time, I didn't even know what it meant but I knew it wasn't good. 

It is so difficult to believe, and always will be, that she isn't with us.  It just isn't fair that someone that young, that beautiful, that determined... can be gone without a moment's notice.

Amy's gorgeous eyes, harmonious nature, philosophical mind, free spirit, and gentle words of wisdom will forever live on in the memories of each and every one of us who loved her.  In the words of Miss Amy, 'Don't be afraid that your life will end... Only be afraid if it never begins.'  Amy's life began. She lived every day to its fullest and made the best of every situation.  She truly is an angel now."

I've been told over and over that time heals all wounds. Though I admit that the sting I felt that day has softened, the pain is more bearable, I would never say that I have healed. None of the people who loved Amy (and boy were there plenty of us) will ever feel quite as whole, as complete, as when she was here on Earth. There are certain people who carry light with them everywhere they go - the kind of people with infectious laughter and unlimited love. Amy was one of those rare and precious souls. She was a light in my life and in so many others. The beauty is that on the very day that her light was extinguished here on Earth, God passed that light onto each and every person who loved her. We carry a bit of Amy with us as we graduate college or get married or fulfill dreams or have babies or break down barriers or simply sit quietly by the lake, toes in the water, staring at a beautiful sunset. She's there. Always. And where she is now - her light shines brighter than ever.

At the butterfly release to honor Amy's memory, this beautiful monarch decided to hang out for a while before it flew away. We did get our goodbye after all. Thank you for that, Amy.

I Used to Lie a Lot

I was watching TV on a lazy Sunday afternoon recently when I heard a line in a typically cliche crime drama that impressed me for its incredible truth and uncharacteristic originality within an otherwise nearly laughable script. 

"The saddest lies are the ones we tell ourselves." 

I started thinking about the biggest lie I ever told myself.

He will love me again. 
Eventually he is going to remember all the reasons he used to love me. 
He just will.
He has to.

I would think about "Mission Win Him Back" in the loneliest hours of the night, particularly after I had one (or five) too many drinks. I tried in every flirtatious fashion to make him stumble and fall back into all the laughs and dreams and feelings that come with young love. I would put on the perfume he liked. I would wear his old t-shirts. I would offer him a piece of spearmint gum, a smell I just knew would trigger all those old feelings. 

But if they did he didn't show it. He was too far gone, so gone that he didn't even seem to remember those times with the same sweet nostalgia I did. He was cold and dismissive. His smelled like smoke and his shaggy blonde hair covered the blue eyes I fell in love with. This stranger in familiar clothes kept pushing me away as I was trying to pull him back in for reasons I didn't understand. 

For years I've wondered what kept me there, in that place of loneliness and desperation. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was youthful ignorance. But, more than likely, it was rooted in my naive assumption that love happens once. You marry your first (and only) love.

I've had outspoken feminist beliefs before I even knew what that word meant so to think that I actually believed that load of shit is pretty humorous. But I did. I may not have said it outright but I learned what I saw. Grandma and Grandpa. Uncle Larry and Auntie Pam. Auntie Karen and Uncle David. My cousin, Jeff, and his wife, Val. Mom and Dad. My sister, Paige, and her Geek Squad boyfriend, Clint (whom she did indeed marry). First and only loves living happily ever after.

I tried and tried, even risking my sanity and my dignity, to make my first love my only love. But I didn't get my happily ever after. 

I got better. 

I got years of experience with heartbreak, learning to pick myself up after crying so hard I couldn't breath. I got to embrace love as it came and accept it for what it was and what it wasn't as I saw it slip through my hands. I got to learn what I didn't want in a man - selfishness, indecisiveness, manipulation. I got to see how wrong he was when he told me that nobody would ever love me again. I got to kiss some major toads and watch as they didn't turn into princes. I got the truest love of all when I needed it most, which happened to be at the most unlikely of times, in the most unlikely of situations. I got flowers in my dorm room with a note asking to be his girlfriend. I got the chance to experience the kind of passion, forgiveness, and unconditional love that I used to dream of. I got to learn that commitment is a decision, a choice you make each and every day when you look over and see your adorable husband drooling on the pillow next to you. 

I still lie to myself. 

"Running out of clean underwear doesn't necessarily mean I have to do laundry today." 
"I'm sure those cookies were around 25 calories.. I mean they were pretty small." 
"Sunscreen schmunscreen. I don't burn like I used to." (Followed soon by blisters).

But there's a truth, strong as oak, that I can repeat in my head over and over again all day, every day. He loves me. As I am. With all he has. Forever and ever. 

And that's a truth worth repeating.

My Most Difficult Confession Yet

I started this post a half dozen times before concluding that there is no right way of saying what I'm trying to say. There are no words to sugar coat it or break it down nicely or make it easier to read. This is by far the most raw, emotional post I have ever written and, after months of struggling over whether or not to write about it, whether or not to drudge up the awful feelings associated with it, I have decided that it is worth an hour or so of painful memories in order to help even one person. So here it is. My most difficult confession yet.


Nearly 4 years ago, on a warm September night during my first semester of college, I was raped. That word - rape - was something I had a hard time saying for months, if not years. I tried to convince myself that it was something else - I had "made a drunken mistake" or I had been "taken advantage of" but I did NOT want to say the word rape. I felt that using the word took my power away from me, that it made me a victim. But what I didn't realize at the time was that it wasn't the word rape that made me feel powerless or that made me a victim, it was the rape itself. And it wasn't my fault.


But it felt like it was my fault. I was drunk when the incident occurred and, for that reason alone, I remember saying to myself over and over again, "You brought it on yourself. Nobody would believe you anyway. Just let it go and move on."


Moving on was hard to do when the rape changed the very way I viewed men and, more than anything, the way I viewed myself. The only way I can describe how I felt for the months following that night is empty. I remember going to class or going to parties, terrified that I was going to run into him. He was a guy I was becoming friends with during the first few weeks of school, a guy I had a trusted to walk me home when I was feeling sick at a party. It was the kind of scary, uneasy sickness that made me think at first that I had drank too much. But I had drank far more in the past than I did that night and had never felt the kind of confusion and dizziness I did as I stumbled around that party. I have speculated that I was drugged that night but, with no evidence to prove one way or the other, the night remains a mystery. 


I remember asking him to walk with me. I remember fumbling and struggling to put on my shoes. I remember feeling safer thinking that a guy I trusted wouldn't let anything bad happen to me. I remember saying goodbye to my friends as they walked to another house. But halfway through the walk home, I don't remember anything. I don't remember the rape. In some ways, that's comforting. But in other ways, it's terrifying. 


Not remembering the incident was the main reason I refused for so long to call it rape and the reason I never pressed charges. I come from a small, fairly conservative town. There are hundreds of open minded, educated, intelligent people in that town but for every one of them there is also a person with a narrow mind and a loud mouth. The ignorance that I grew up around led me to believe a very misguided assumption: "It is only rape if somebody says no." I couldn't have been rape if I wasn't screaming, kicking, fighting him off. It couldn't have been rape if I knew him and trusted him before that night. It couldn't have been rape if I had asked him to walk with me to my dorm. There were so many reasons that it couldn't have been rape. But it was. I felt it in the deepest part of my soul. It comes down to this very simple fact - how was I supposed to say no when I wasn't in a state of mind to say anything at all? 


I remember a male acquaintance of mine, completely unaware of what had happened to me just months before, making a joke that women who get that drunk (referring to an obnoxious, flirty girl at a party) are "pretty much asking for it." To that person, and to others who think that way, I say this: the punishment for drinking too much should be a hangover not rape. Before running your mouth about things you know nothing about, before joking about sexual assault, before making light of a topic that is so painful for so many people, remember this story. Before you say that a you got "totally raped" by an exam, or countless other similar comments I've heard over the years, remember that 1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. The way you felt after failing an exam will never compare to the violation and horror somebody feels after being raped. Find a more accurate metaphor. 


To anybody who has experienced sexual assault, please know that there is never any circumstance under which it was your fault. Don't justify it. Don't push it aside to deal with it later. You need to let it out, whether that means talking to a counselor, a family member, or a friend. You're still beautiful, even though ugly things have happened to you. The assault does not define who you are or what you can be. You deserve happiness and you are worthy of more respect than you can imagine.