Who am I, and what have I been searching for all this time?

I am a woman, no longer a girl. I lost my childhood too soon, no one asked, no one noticed when I shed my girlish cocoon. It happened in the blink of an eye - the moment when the tears filled her eyes and spilled over her ivory cheek.

I am a woman who is who she is because of all the worldly troubles she has witnessed. All the small images that play in my mind, from what feels like someone else's life. - A burned down cigarette between his sleeping fingers - the lives that were put in danger - the cold still seeps in from that night in our front yard. Knowing then that nothing would ever be the same - one less person I could rely on.

I am a woman who broke her own shackles and made her own way into this world. Knowing nothing - having nothing - but willing to gain everything I could. A woman who's dealt with too many troubles, and worried so much that she no longer knows how not to worry. A woman who has fallen so many times and recovered from those falls just as many times.

I am a woman who has so much to live for now. I am a daughter, a step-daughter, a sister, a step-sister, I am an aunt, a niece, a cousin, a granddaughter. I matter in this world. I have people who love me no matter what I have done in the past, and no matter what I will inevitably do in the future. I have more than one best friend - I wouldn't have it any other way- and I have someone who I can tell every little detail of my life too with out fear of judgment. I have a boyfriend who isn't controlling, or demanding, or jealous.

I am a woman who is living a life that she never dreamed she would have. One that she forged on her own. I am a woman who has a tattoo on her so she will never forget those things that happened in the past - so she will never forgtet who she is, what she's overcome, and what she is capable of.

I am a woman that clings to the past because she is afraid of the future. Who is still scared that the sky will come falling down on her. Who wants passionately that she has no idea where to start. I want the life that is promised to all youth - "You can be anything you want to be" - I want to be more to people, I want to matter, I want to do good for someone. I want to break the code to life. How do I move forward?

At the moment, I am a woman who is happy. I find joy in small things, and beauty in almost everything. That's how I want to stay. And still I hold up the hard exterior because I fear everything could change in a moment - it only took a moment for me to lose my childhood, and I have so much more to lose now - almost 17 years later.

I am a woman who has been blessed. She has been tested and trialed, and has ran into so many road blocks, and for all of my troubles I now know what I am capable of dealing with.

My whole life has been building toward something and this whole time I've been waiting - trying to figure out what it's all about - it's about who I am.

I am Elizabeth Ashley Howard. And knowing all I know from the life I've lived is what it has all been about.

-Out