I rode my bike to my daughter’s house and locked it up with a Kryptonite Keeper lock to her front porch railing. She has the white vinyl 4×4 posts that made it tricky to put the lock around my bike frame.

As I was doing that, my daughter came out and told me I didn’t have to lock it up. That it was safe there and no one would touch it. I didn’t listen to her and continued forcing the lock to connect, and I succeeded. Once inside her house, she smirked at me and shook her head. The look told me she thought I was overly cautious and needn’t bother. I wouldn’t have peace of mind with her if I didn’t lock it up. I don’t care where I’m at.

My clothes were stolen from the clothesline when I was a young girl. I washed my clothes since I was nine years old and took good care of them. I was devastated! But then I was re-traumatized when I found some of them in trees down the alley behind my house. I only retrieved a few items. The rest were gone. I was robbed.

I was robbed of my peace of mind when I wanted to hang out my clothes again. I couldn’t do it. I loved the smell of fresh, laundered clothes dried on the line. Nope, that was over.

I used to walk in the woods near my house to write songs. I couldn’t sing at home; I had no peace or place to do it, so I’d take a tape recorder, pen, or tablet and go into the woods. I amassed many songs with just me singing. As a teenager, I dreamed of being able to sing and sell those songs. Anyway, the woods near my house were peaceful and familiar. I knew all the paths and felt safe there. But then I didn’t feel safe anymore. Someone followed me into the woods for bad reasons. I was robbed of my peace of mind to ever go down those woods alone again. And I never did.

A change of bus stop allowed me to meet new friends from another town. We started hanging out, and I experienced the woods near them and walked in those woods to write songs. I felt safe there. I was skittish and constantly aware of my surroundings, but I was okay. That was until a few years later when I learned that a guy (I didn’t know well) used to follow me into the woods and watch me sing. You could probably imagine the creepy feeling I had. I was so freaked out! I was robbed of my peaceful memory of being alone in the woods.

Of course, I had to find new woods to access. That was my saving grace: connecting with nature, the earth, and trees, feeling the energy around me, and being just me. I didn’t have to hide myself or quiet my voice; I was free. I found a place to go a few miles from my house and walked with the family dog. I figured she would sniff out trouble before I could.

Little Miss Chi Chi did not sniff out anything, and I got to experience an arrow zooming by, not anywhere near me, but close enough to hear the woosh or wizz or whatever sound they made, and it freaked me out! That was the end of going to those woods alone. I was robbed of a peaceful walk in the woods again.

I long to have a property with woods and put up a twenty-foot barbed wire fence, not electrified because of the animals, and tons of cameras. No, I’m kidding! I do want the large property, though, with woods. And I still walk in the woods, but I’m with my guy.

So, the whole point of this blog is not to ramble about my “woes” as it is to show some things I experienced and offer some pointers on how to release yourself from the anger or sadness you feel about something that went wrong in your life. These experiences make us who we are, but we can’t keep living there. That’ll make us stuck. I know. I was there for a long time.

When we feel robbed of our time, our livelihood, our freedom, or our peace, it makes us anxious. We act differently. We’re not living our life, just a version of it, protected in what we think is a safe shell. Don’t think about what’s truly bothering you; keep busy, and life will move by.

I’m not a hundred percent sure how to overcome the feeling of being robbed, but I can tell you that our minds will try to keep us safe, which might mean changing things and being more careful to keep peace of mind. It’s hard to get it back when we lose trust in something. However, we can find new ways to live that help us not think of the past but make us feel good now.

If you have been robbed of something dear to you, I am truly sorry, and please give yourself some compassion. It’s okay to feel the loss and do what you need to do to feel better. I used to feel like I was doing something wrong by sharing my experiences that robbed me, but this is part of me. Since I don’t ever want to feel bad about myself, I should never feel bad for sharing these experiences. I hope that makes sense.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope something sparks a little peace of mind within you. We all have stories. I hope my life stories help you. If so, please comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

To not being robbed,

Francesca