Let's start from the very beginning...

Queen Julie.

One of my most favourite movies in the world is the Sound of Music. I understand that  the highs and lows of Maria and the Von Trapp family may be considered a tad stale in this fast, modernized world where music is served on digital links and SoundCloud can make a music star in 130k likes but for me the Sound of Music holds true to the earliest memory that I have of wanting to learn. The Von Trapp children had to learn to loosen up from a very authoritarian upbringing. Maria came in like a breath of fresh air and taught those VT kids how to be free.

That’s how I feel at times. I am learning how to be free. Let’s face it, my life was almost written for me at 19. I married an older much more educated man whose life calling was to call people to believe in a religion that frankly nowadays is considered persona non grata. It was an indoctrinated life of sorts. I read from only certain scholars. I listened to only certain speakers. I was a traditionalist and it showed.

Everything seemed to be forbidden. At times it seemed that being a woman was forbidden. I guess that was my biggest struggle. The desire to follow something that *felt *right yet seemed to prevent me participating in much of what I considered to be my rights.  The most important one for me was the inability to attend school.

A formal education was considered to be something that could potentially contribute towards the demise of our womanhood. We could not mix. So we didn’t. The vast majority of women I knew in the traditional cocoon felt the same. We stayed at home, got pregnant, cooked for our husbands and their friends and gave birth.  In no particular order. Rinse and repeat.

This was supposed to be the lauded life but for me, it was a struggle. A constant one.  I was constantly arguing, Debating, Questioning. I felt constricted by others opinion yet had little of my own. I yearned to be educated. I yearned to learn. It was not enough to read books on my religion. I wanted to read books that would allow my world to evolve into the world that I dreamed of.   I knew I wanted to learn. So a broken marriage or two, an ocean crossing or two and I finally found myself preparing for, what feels like my true journey’s start.

At every point in this journey, I have had to struggle through difficult challenges. Death. Cancer. Jail. I am the satellite to other people’s struggles too but satellites rarely fall to earth. They continue.  They do what they have to do and that’s what I plan on doing.
So welcome to this. My journey. The first step towards my best life.