And here I sit.

And here I sit.
By the coffee shop window with my world of Phd spread out across the table and the outside world resumes around me in an orderly fashion.
People come and go, chat and laugh, and I smile that I know I am in this world.
Getting out and working provides me with much spirit, as I think seeing and talking to people is an important medicine that should be taken daily.
I used to think people were all bad. They all presented me with such hurt which I internalised, and made visible through cuts and bruises on my body. Wounds that would scar and be forever on me.
Yet it is not forever in me.
Some people did things to me that caused so much pain and anguish, so much hurt.
Men abused me. My body. My soul. And most scarily, my mind.
Abuse is a difficult thing, as it is the sad truth that in this world are abusers.
For me I have been subject to two different events of abuse in my life, one when I was 12 and happened once, and one when I was 18 and went on for months.
This made me think and feel everyone was an abuser. I became scared of people.
I would hide in the house, I couldn't go to lectures or socialise. I'd sit in the lecture theatre and think everyone was writing about me, nasty, awful things that I could not bare. Of course, this isn't true.
But it was real. So real. And I feared going there, so I didn't. I hid.

However, the world has abusers in it, yet it also is full of beautiful, wonderful, inspiring people.
The latter makes it worth being a part of.
A stranger can remind you of this. A smile. A 'hello'.
And this is world has more good than bad, and its important you stop the bad from taking over.

So I sit here and smile. I drink my earl grey with my eyes full of life.