At the turn of each year since 2009, I enjoy the annual two week break off school. This year was special. Not because of the exceptionally extreme cold weather we had, but because I was surrounded by the love of the most important people in my life. The people who believed that I could truly realise my dream despite my handicap. And with the winter that follows its course, this morning, starts my before last bachelor's degree semester.
Even though I struggled in my personal life throughout, I will make it to the Commencement ceremony in May at the famous Berklee College of Music of Boston. I am proud to say that I will succeed in getting it with the distinction "Magna Cum Laude". I am almost euphoric, yet I'm still afraid. I'm afraid that something terrible might happen so close to the end, so close to my goal: my degree and the realization of my next music album.
Do you wonder why I still fear so much? I fear so much because my body remembers and my mind at times can't do anything about it. My body remembers...
The out of mind manager who threatened to kill me with a revolver on my head before making my life a true hell on earth until I left the band. It was an all girl band, a band with my childhood friends, which was starting to have a significant success after years of hard work;
The rape that felt like a tsunami on my body and which ripped me off maternity. My son was not even two months old;
The brutal vacuum that this tsunami left in my mind and which forced me to abandon my third year of studies in music at the Université de Montréal;
The cold and apathetic role my husband played towards my survival state while humiliating me covertly until I imploded in my prison of shame and at a time that we were finally having a successful business;
Yes, I'm scared, I lose faith at times.
Will life allow me to make it to the finish line? I hope so, it means the whole world to me.
Making it to the end, despite my injuries and my disabilities goes beyond choosing life for myself. It means that those who tried to destroy me in the past will not win. I will have the last say, I will thrive, live and smile again while learning to bury the hatred of rape culture which flagellated me for far too many years. Making it to the finish line for me will allow me to cry out loud and clear...
You did not kill me.
mm