My first book is about to be released in print. It's exciting, but at the same time it is frightening. I'm still not positive that I said what I wanted to say exactly the way I wanted to say it, but I think I came pretty close.

Most of the books I have read regarding abuse survivors have been overwhelmingly negative, they talk about the after effects, the nightmares, the flashbacks, the fear of intimacy, the inability to trust.

Those things certainly are byproducts of abuse, but along with the negative consequences come a great many skills that can actually help us when we see them for what they are.

Yes, survivors often have every reason to view the world as a negative place, but in the end that negativity only hurts us. The world is also a positive place, full of life affirming experiences. Life is beautiful but first we have to choose that beauty.

I can't tell you how often I have heard survivors describe themselves as broken, I have done so myself many times, but most of us really are far less broken than we imagine ourselves to be. What has been broken can be fixed, but far too many give up the hope of healing before they even start.

Life itself is a path that each of us must travel, and healing is only a part of that path if you choose to follow it.

Sometimes we tend to think of healing as a destination, thinking that some day we will finally be able to say, "that's it, I am healed." When we focus only on the destination we are missing the greatest things that life has to offer, it is the journey that is important, and as long as we keep ourselves moving towards healing, we can and will heal.

If we keep putting one foot in front of the other, if we just keep going no matter what gets in the way we will heal, but healing is a process, and that process continues throughout our lifetime.

In the end, where we have been isn't near as important as how far we have come.

"We are men, we are women, we are young and we are old. We all have our own unique stories, it hardly seems we have anything in common at all, but we are a family. We are a family because of what we do have in common. We are a family joined not by blood, but by spirit.

We are survivors, and we are stronger than any of us truly know or understand."

Excerpt from the upcoming book
'Sister, Survivor'
by Ayngel "Boshemia" Overson

Everyone has been raving about the Twilight books, and I am a die hard vampire fan so I must admit I was intrigued. I have not read the books, but two of my three children have.

My twelve year old son was dying to see the movie, so I broke down this weekend and took him to see it as a late birthday present.

While I was watching the movie with my two younger children, alarm bells kept going off in my head, but I kept pushing it aside thinking I was just being to critical. Now a few days later, something is still bothering me.

When she first meets the Edward, he is more than rude to Bella. Given his situation, it was understandable. Yet as the movie progresses it becomes obvious that he cares for her deeply.

He shows his affection for her in the beginning by going into her room and watching her sleep at night, and by following her to another town and saving the day when she is being harassed by a group of boys.

He explains to her that he only does it because he cares for her, he feels protective over her. By the end he is so possessive that the sight of her talking to a childhood friend who is male obviously agitates him.

Bella begins the relationship a strong, powerful, and independent young woman. When she realizes what he is, and the danger he poses to her she chooses to overlook it.

While everyone is raving about the values of the movie, about how they don't have sex until they are married, that later there is a strong pro life message that follows even when Bella's very life is at stake. mothers keep telling me how happy they are to have a movie teaching their daughters values such as these.

I had the opposite reaction, something really just didn't set right with me. They are so excited about the strong values presented that they seem to be missing a huge part of the overall message.

Teenage girls are madly in love with the beautiful Edward and all he represents. He is the bad boy teenage girls have been drawn to since the beginning of time. He is also dangerous.

When a boy watches a girl sleep, or follows her to another town, in real life that is not romantic, it is stalking. When a boy excuses this behavior by saying that he just feels protective over her, that's the first steps to abuse.

As the movie progressed, Bella seemed to lose much of her strong, independent self as she became more and more wrapped up in Edwards world. She submits herself to him to the point of begging him not to leave her.

As adults we are capable of understanding that this is just a fairytale, but what about all of these twelve year old girls who are dreaming of their very own Edward?

Someone to stalk them, follow them around so he can protect her, isolate her from her friends and support system. I'm not saying our daughters shouldn't see this movie, or read the books.

I am however saying that every parent should watch this movie with their daughters and discuss it with them. This is a good chance to open up a dialogue. To explain the difference between fantasy and reality, and to teach them about healthy relationships.

What I saw when I watched this movie were warning signs of something that in real life isn't romantic at all. In real life a relationship that begins like this ends in abuse, emotional, psychological, and sometimes eventually physical.

It ends with a girl giving up all she is to please a man who can't help being who he is. After all, he just feels protective of her.

I don't know about you, but that is the LAST thing I want for my daughters in the future.

(Sugar is my grandmother, she is 78 years old and I still can't keep up with her. She is also the name sake of our store and this website.)

Lazy autumn days, filled with children's laughter and falling leaves. Nature puts forth one more display of color before the long cold winter is here. Winter symbolizes death, spring represents the renewal of life. Autumn is different, it is not the beginning, nor is it the end.

Watching my Grandmother endure the autumn years of her life, I realize how blessed I am to still have her here with me. She is the center of our universe, the beginning and the end for each of us. She has her own colors, still even now, watching her grow and change is amazing.

Life has not been kind to her, but she has never ceased to be kind in return. She has every reason to be bitter, to expect the world to give to her, and offer nothing in return. So many things have been taken from her, people forcing her to play the role of victim in the drama they call life.

Yet she is not and never will be a victim. She faces each new challenge with a strength I can only imagine. No matter how many times she has been wronged in this life, she still has faith in the goodness of mankind. She will still help a total stranger, call an enemy a friend.

Her senior picture fascinates me, I see the innocence and fresh faced beauty of a girl with her whole life ahead of her. The skin that was once smooth and clean, now deeply creased with age. Yet she is still beautiful, she has never let the outside world taint the beauty she holds on the inside.

I wake up in the middle of the night crying, wondering how I will ever manage to live without her when the time comes. I can’t even imagine putting one foot in front of the other in a world where she is no longer just an arms length away. She is the glue that holds our family together, and I fear without her we will all fall apart.

Each moment spent with her is an attempt to memorize everything about her, to store it up, to make it mine forever. I don’t care how many times she has told me the same story, I always want to hear it just one more time. To make sure I have every single word implanted in my brain.

She has taught me so much about life, and love, and forgiveness. Yet I’m not a tenth of the woman she is. I could never suffer the kind of abuse she has endured without bitterness running through my blood. Yet her blood runs through my veins, so I must have that in me somewhere.

In her autumn years, she has lost nothing of that innocent girl she once was. It is still there in her smile, still there when she throws back her head and laughs. She’s lived a long life, and despite the sorrows she has lived a full life. She has loved, and she has been loved.

She is still loved by those she brought into this world. She is our rock, our sanctuary. She is what made us whole. Yet another birthday came and passed, and I would have offered her the world as a gift if I could have. So now, as I watch her pass through her autumn years I have only one wish.

That I could give her peace.