I'm going to open up a lot more than recent posts today, but I just need to get this off my chest so feel free to come back tomorrow if you don't want your perspective of me to change. It won't hurt my feelings. But this is real, and I know people don't always like to hear real.

I have dealt with a lot of anger and hatred over the past year or so. Actually, that's not completely true. I'm still dealing with it. I'm still learning how to overcome it and channel it, but I will say I have made a lot of progress. I have come a long way from the kid that hid from his anger; the little boy that put on a mask and acted like everything was fine.

I'll be honest I have been very angry for a long time. Sometimes it was warranted and sometimes it was misdirected. Sometimes I was blatant about it and others I pretended nothing was wrong. There were a lot of reasons for my actions, but the most prevalent was definitely fear. I was afraid of what my life was becoming. I was afraid of how powerless I felt to change my situation. I was afraid of losing people I cared about. Most of all I was afraid of starting over.

I let that fear control me and it made me very unhappy and (excuse my French) pissed off at everything and everyone. I was pissed off at my family. I was pissed off at myself. Pissed off at God. I let fear warp my thoughts and control my actions. It made me paranoid; I saw betrayal and deception where there was none. I doubted myself and questioned my own existence.

But now I'm tired of being afraid. Fear makes a terrible master, and I'm done subjecting myself to that. I have people who love me and I can lean on when things get hard but I don't need to be scared anymore because there are things going on around me every day that I may not understand but I can trust that they have a purpose. Because God has me in the palm of His hand and who am I to say that's not enough? It's more than enough. I can trust His plan now because my thoughts are no longer consumed by fear and paranoia and worry. And when I feel those thoughts creeping up I now know the people I can turn to for help.