PERSONAL: THE RULES TO LIVE BY

THE RULES

1-      STOP SELF-BLAME: Thinking you are the worst human being alive and that you should be whipped You blame yourself for not getting the promotion or even because someone failed to say Hello to you. BAD ME! You may have behaved badly and the fact that u are guilty of wrong behavior and then u feel guilty over that behavior. It means that u have labeled yourself by your behavior. Your thinking goes like this-

                I am guilty of being rude to that waiter….that means I am bad

STOP and think what you are doing to yourself when you blame yourself

                -you think you are unworthy of belonging to the human race

                -you see yourself as a species apart from all others

                -you smear yourself with verbal filth so that you stink to yourself

                -you treat yourself as though others should spit on you and avoid u like the plague

                -you tar and feather yourself with invisible hate and loathing

                -you physically punish yourself with burning cigarettes or cut yourself with razor blades

*******if someone else were to do all these acts to you—wouldn’t u think he was the meanest

                and cruelest human being you ever met and wouldn’t you fight for very life not to be treated in    

                such a shameful manner

ALL OF THIS SELF-TORTURE YOU ARE CLEANSING YOURSELF OF ALL YOUR SINS

Guilty over misdeeds on the grounds that the pain connected with the guilt will prove to be so unpleasant that the act will surely be avoided in the future.

                If it is so good to suffer when you do it, why is it wrong if someone else does it?

                Self-blame depression is caused by two ideas:

                                a-we must be perfect or

                                b-people are bad and should be severely blamed

                When others behave badly you are naturally inclined to rate them bad also. They become the

same as a their deeds. Good deeds and you think you are dealing with good humans. Bad deeds, and you think you are dealing with good humans.  Bad deeds, and you deal with bad people. Rubbish! Good

deeds do not makes good people. Good deeds makes good carpenters (or whatever), but who says that good carpenters are good human?

                There is a underlying trait of all self-blamers. They cannot stand the ugly fact that they are just

human, faulty, mistakes makers, and no amount of work will ever change that trait completely. Still

they of on endlessly neurotically demanding that their behavior has to better than others’ and that unless they stop wrong doing immediately, they deserve the worst kind of treatment.             

                The bible suggest: loving your neighbor as yourself. Ever religion  makes a point of the human being’s recognizing the fact that he is human and no amount of work can make him a God. All religions

accept that fact that man is man, that he is weak and that he will sin no matter how hard he tries not to sin. Man is not perfect, so he must act imperfectly. Only God is perfect and he made us imperfectly. He

has the power of forgiveness regardless of what we have done.  The point is if God can forgive us our

terrible behavior, shouldn’t we be equally kind and generous with ourselves.

2-STOP SELF-PITY:

                It is neurotic to insist that others treat us fairly, that our kindness be returned with kindness, and

that the world has to be a descent place in which to live. You must learn that while you are living on the face of this earth, unfair and unkind behavior in exchange for your loving efforts is the rule rather than the exception. Two statements cause this:

                a-I want my way in this matter and

                b-it’s awful if I don’t get my way

As long as you want,desire, prefer, or wish for anything, you will never be upset if you don’t get what it is you desire. It is only when you think that you must be right, when you believe that it is the end of the world not to have your dream yacht on the Mediterranean, and when you feel that it is positively awful if you aren’t elected as the next millionaire. Most of your self-pity comes because we confuse sad events with castrophic or tragic events. We honestly believe that what we area experiencing is awful, the end of the world, and simply unbearable. You have to talk yourself into thinking that an event is unbearable, and most of the time (99%) you are dead wrong. The greatest majority of events in our lives are regrettable, not awful, are disappointing, not catastrophic ;or tragic.

                ***You are telling yourself that you still wanted to be sweethearts with the girl, and had you stopped there, you would have felt sad and nothing more. But you went farther and convinced yourself

that being rejected is unfair, that it was terrible thing to do after all you had done for her, and that why did all this rotten stuff have to happen to you.

                SURE it’s unfair, but why shouldn’t it be? Just because you don’t want unfair things to happen

to you does that mean they can’t? Is it the end of the world just because you didn’t get your way?

Life is an endless series of frustrations. It is for this reason that the pro rather than the amateur

in this business of living is not hell-bent on removing all his frustrations as a condition for a happy

life. No one can go through even so much as one day without being somewhat frustrated. The only persons

who do not experience frustration are up in heaven or in the grave.

                The behavior in other changes in a very uneven way. One day a person behaves admirably and maturely and the next day is right back to  the same old tricks.

3-FEAR OF REJECTION:

One of the reasons people dread being rejected is their belief that the rejection means that they are no good, that they would not have been rejected had they been different, and that the  rejection is proof

of their worthlessness. According to this view, the person who doing the rejection is always right and superior, while the ones rejected is always in the wrong and is somehow faulty

                But us this correct? Why isn’t there something wrong with the fellow who rejects me? When you

stop and realize that every single soul who ever lived and is living and will live is neurotic some of the time, how can you continue to think that every judgment made by those neurotics out there must be accurate judgment? It seem to me that this is the first lesson we must all make about  the evaluations of

others: Others can be petty, prejudiced, mean, and envious. Their rejection of you tells you more about them than about you.  For example, if your friends goes to the grocery counter and buys grapes, peaches,

and bananas, but doesn’t buy apples, what is  he telling you about apples? That apples are bad? That

no one  else will approve of apples? That apples should feel ashamed of themselves and break down and have a depression? NO! Your friend’s rejection of apples only tells us that he finds them distasteful and prefers other fruit. Other people will surely find these same apples satisfying.

4-OVERCOMING SHYNESS:

                They are so convinced of their unworthiness that they are certain everyone else will be as convinced of that fact as they are. When they meet people they automatically view others as superior, threatening, and ready to reject them. When meeting others, they will turn their eyes away or they will blush or they will shake hands in a weak and limp manner. There are signal to the other person that here is a shy, scared, and inferior-feeling person. They could just as well wear a T-shirt bearing the message: I am not a good as you are. I know you’re not going to like me.

                To overcome shyness it is imperative that you question the idea that you are somehow totally

inferior to other people in certain respects. The person you want to talk to may be better wage earner,

a better singer, have more education, and so on. But you undoubted have some talents which the person you’re addressing does not have or has in lesser measure. Perhaps you can garden, cook. Most of us have something we can do better than someone else. But the shy person does not see this. He concludes that ,

because he is inferior in one or more ways, he is totally inferior and must feel ashamed.

                Some people may not like you on the first meeting because of your dialect, skin color, or appearance. You probably judge others in the same way. Ask yourself if the people you feel superior to are totally worthless.  Even shy person cries away from going to parties or asking others if they may join them because of the considerable discomfort they know they’ll experience if they do the social thing. Some sweat under the arms, others tremble at the knees, and still others get tense they stammer, look away. Or blush. Any of these symptoms are easily understood as sign of distress. To the shy person, nevertheless, it is a time of slow death. They are worried about having  something to say, whether they’ll sat something to say, whether they’ll say something dumb and make fools of themselves, or if their nervousness will be obvious other will spot it in an instant. All these consideration are irrelevant---totally irrelevant. Sweat blood if you must. Whatever you do, don’t avoid the encounter. If you tell yourself very quickly that this discomfort is not going to kill you, that these people are not going to reject you, that even if they did, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, and that these people are no different from you except in some very specific way, you’ll face the music and smile and talk.  To do or not to do then rest on only one consideration: which choice result in the least pain.  The answer? Facing a difficult task is overwhelmingly easier in the long run.

                And we all drive around in cars that kill over 50,000 people in the United State each year and cripple about a million. Yet none of us quiver, sweat, or shake whenever we step into our cars. We look forward to it. We enjoy the scenery and listen to music while rolling along at high speeds, relatively unmindful of the fact that a drunk could be coming from an opposite direction. WE know that could happen but that doesn’t stop us from driving.  Now compare those situation with being introduced to a few stranger at a cocktail party. There is not a ghost of a chance that any of those people are going to pull out a machine gun and shoot you. none of them is going to gang up on you and beat you.  They are all going to size you up a bit just as you are sizing them up to see if there is anything that you have in common with them or they with you. Then they will move on and chat with someone else. That is not dangerous. That can never be fatal. It is a totally harmless experience, yet it is perceive by millions of people as a frightening and even terrifying.

5-DON’T SACRIFICE YOURSELF IN RELATIONSHIP-BEING BAD/GOOD GUY

                Be as loving and as giving as you can and your mate will love you forever, so the thinking goes.

Forget it. Its not true at all.  You are in a relationship because you expect to be happier as a boyfriend that you would alone. That a healthy motive and a selfish one too. If you don’t recognize this fact, you’ll often feel guilty overweening or getting your way.  If you allow  yourself to become neglected at the expense of doing all manner of niceties for your mate, 3 things will happen. 

                1-your mate will think everything is just wonderful and you will feel more and more abused

                 because your needs and desires are being ignored

                2-you will hate your mate

                3-you’ll hate the relationship

You do not build a good relationship by chronically sacrificing yourself out of a sense of deep love. You

spoil the one you indulge and make yourself miserable. One of the greatest drawbacks of being a nice guy is that you tend to agree too readily with the opinions of others. Too many people think that satisfying their own ends makes them selfish. Think for a moment what that means…If you don’t get your way, someone else is getting his or her way. How can it be otherwise?

Another way to make doormats out of people is through guilt. And one to he best ways to create guilt is to accuse persons of not caring for you, and you do this by appealing to their claims of

love. “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t object to my going hunting,”

                She gets her way so often at his expense that he getting:

                a-to dislike himself for being so weak

                b-to dislike her for insisting on having her way practically all the time

                c-to dislike the marriage because it has become a load he is not happy to carry

                Many men believe that being very nice to women is the best way to guarantee their love and respect. In other words, the more you do for a women, the more she’ll love you. Not so with many women.

Here is where the rule breaks down. Women do not want to be catered to  by the important men in their lives. They don’t mind your being attentive, tender, caring, but be careful that you do not do everything they  ask or you’ll lose them. That’s right, lose them.

                Before a women can love you she generally has to respect you. If she loses respect for you, she loses the love too. Therefore, you are wiser usually to stand your ground with your girl, deny her from time to time, and assert yourself over her occasionally. She’ll respect you for it. Example—the high school boy takes his girl to a movie. To show his respect for here he asks which movie she wants to see. They go there. They meet some of their friends and he wants to accept an invitation to bring his girl to the home where all the gang is going after they finish at the restaurant, but he asks her first. She wants to go home. They go home. He probably thinks he’s making a great hit. Little does he realize that by never disagreeing with his girl he gives her the impression he’s spineless, that he doesn’t have a mind of his own, o that he’s so desperate to win her approval he’ll put up with almost anything. Women want a man to be strong, not weak. They want to lean upon him and accept direction from him at times, not to run his life or he hers. She’s trying to find out just how much he will take before he puts his foot down and his shoulders back.  If he were to assert himself kindly but firmly once in a while, she’d have a great deal more respect for him. And after developing respect, she’d feel more loving. First she’ll complain of not getting her way. If you’re been fair all along, don’t listen to this. It is her way of testing you. She wants to see if she can manipulate you, wrap you around her finger. So she makes those noises, hopping down deep that you’ll stand up to her and say NO. Sometime she’ll push you so far that you any have to choose between giving in to her or face a breakup. This may still be that game she’s playing. Stand pat when you

know you are in the right. If you’re strong enough inwardly to stand her rejection, your chances of earning her admiration go up greatly. She then knows that you cannot be manipulated, her threats of leaving you don’t scare you, and you must be pretty secure. That impresses her and lets her feel she has a strong man, one she can lean on once in a while.

6-STOP ASKING FOR UNDYING APPROVAL FROM YOUR PARENTS:

I did this. I am really upsetting my mother.” Look what a bad son I am” Is that it?

You don’t dare upset your parents because they will reject you and you couldn’t possibly stand that.

At thirty? Now do you really, really still need your father and mother’s undying love, their approval?

The question is …How did you get into that condition?

                First, you are letting people make you feel guilty.

                Second you are saying, “If I don’t agree with them and do everything they say, they will reject me and I couldn’t stand it if my mother and father didn’t love me. They must love me at all times. I can’t possibly live with their rejection. 

               

                “NONSENSE…they don’t make you feel guilty . You have a right to your own desires, and if they get upset, that is their problem. If they reject you, that’s too bad. That mattered when you were three years old, but it hardly matters at 30. It does matter, of course, but not that much when you have to deny yourself the choice of a mate. Or to make a trip. Or whatever. Come on, when are you going to grow up?

What is it going to take? How old do you have to be before you start saying: Okay, mother and father, you want to reject me. Go ahead. “DO you really need their approval anymore?

                The other thing you don’t believe is that rejection doesn’t hurt. At the moment you stand up to yourself you think:” But it does hurt. I  can’t possibly think of alienating myself from these people

and never have them talk to me again. It would be unbearable” I think not. First of all, they are going to come around. Most parent come around. In any event you are no longer a child. At the moment you stand up to them, remember that.

                If people really love you, they are not going to use guilt to make you miserable. Ithough that made sense. If they truly care in the way they say they do, they are going to watch out for feelings too. Its

not going to be a one-way street. If you care for a person, you are not going to manipulate here by her feelings, because that’s just not right.

                You will seldom achieve full stature as a mature adult if you wait for conditions to be perfect before asserting yourself. Yet this is a most common rationalization not acting in your own best interests

                We must learn that frustrations are a part of life. They are as inevitable as death. You could no more be alive and not have frustration than you could be alive and not eat. More importantly, you can no more live with someone and not be frustrated by him several times during the day than you could read a book without turning the pages. For you to get angry with your loved ones because they are frustrating you is like being angry with them because they breathe. I know you wouldn’t really be that foolish, but with frustrations you are. You think people you love should never frustrate you! What rubbish!

Children have it rammed into them that they must obey unquestioningly. They must believe what they are told. They are encouraged not to think, not to ask question. Rejection is not painful unless you make it so. Once you get into your head that you do not need a particular person’s love and respect, you will change the forces that stifle your very growth.

                We have a germ of self-doubt and we distrust ourselves. We will usually wonder “Who am I to

think that I am right and everyone else is wrong? I’m nothing. I’m uneducated, so how can I be so sure I am right?” If you let your feelings of inferiority scare you from thinking freely, then again you will be silenced even though you may have the most productive mind in the world. Let’s face it, some of the more

brilliant thoughts have appeared to us at first glance throughout history to be absurd and stupid.

Shirley wanted to quit school….her parent threatened to cut off all funds, suggested she might not have the privilege of living any longer under their roof, and would not talk to her if she persisted in this wild scheme. Shirley got mad over their threats she couldn’t think straight. After she quickly told herself neurotic trash like they couldn’t do this to her, they had to see things her ways, it was awful to have to be frustrated, and they shouldn’t dominate her because she didn’t want to be dominated. You

unthinkingly insisted that the parent should not treat them as they had. I attempted to show them, however, that neurotic parent must act neurotically---they have no choice. In addition, my clients did

not need to take such behavior personally since these parents would behave in that manner whether

it was toward my client or not. A disturbed person must and will behave as though he is disturbed.

That is how I explain to my angry clients that one’s mother could not help threatening suicide if her

son went off to marry. You cannot be surprised or angered at any neurotic behavior when you truly

accept the fact that your parents ( and everyone else for that matter) are irrational some of the time and some of them are upset a great deal of the time. That may not be nice way to view one’s parents, but if they are neurotic they are neurotic. Hiding from the truth is foolish.

7-SEQUENCE OF GETTING ANGRY:

Anger

                You believe at that point that it is awful and horrible if you don’t get everything you want

and that people who frustrate you are bad, and wicked and should be hated for their wickedness.

You are wrong on all counts. People who think they should have everything they want are just full of prunes. Just because other people frustrate you hardly makes them evil and horrible human being who have to be criticized, beaten or killed. You convinced yourself instead that you must have what you

want. You should changed your healthy and natural wishes and desires into neurotic needs and demands. If you don’t get what you want you only become disappointed and regretful.  How many of you have wanted to be rich, famous, beautiful, have a yacht on the Rivera- And how many of you got furious

and angry with the world because you didn’t get those things simply because you wanted them?

When you convince yourself that you have to have something and don’t get it, that’s a different story.

Then you become hostile, furious, bitter, resentful, and you want to hurt everyone around you or scream your head off.  But don’t you see what caused the anger? It is not the fact that you did not get what you

wanted.

                You have undoubtedly seen children throw tantrums. Why do they do this? Obviously because

they don’t get what they think they have to have. Isn’t that why a four year old child scream, kicks fusses , and bangs his head on the floor?

                What ‘s the difference between what this child is doing and what you are doing? There’s

only one difference: the kinds of frustration. The child gets disturbed over not getting a ice-cream cone, whereas you wanted a pay raise, or more respect.  In other word you have adult concerns, desire, and needs. But when you get angry you are regressing to the level of a child and are behaving like a child.

You must say to yourself—I am not a child. I don’t have to have everything I want. People who are

frustrating me really aren’t bad, they’re simply mistaken to have some pretty strong views of their won which don’t agree with mine.

                We repeatedly think this way when getting a bad grade, getting a divorce, losing a job, or being rejected by those who are dear to us. There are all uncomfortable and unfortunate events in our lives to be sure, but they are not horrible, terrible, unbearable, or catastrophic. Yet it is our neurotic belief that if

unpleasant things happen to us, it is not just unfortunate, it is the end of the world. When we talk to

ourselves in these catastrophic terms and believe that things are terrible, awful, horrible, or unbearable we are bound to become very upset.

                They think their value as a person comes only from being loved or approved of, and that if they are not loved, they are nothing. They go by the title of that song- “You’re nobody till somebody loves you”

Rejection hurts only if you make it hurt. When you get over the idea  that the love someone shows you makes you or breaks you, you won’t be so scared of the fact that maybe you are not the greatest lover or the best dancer, or the best mate.  And you don’t have to be. As long as you are able to satisfy your partner to a reasonable degree, just as your partner often satisfies you only to a reasonable degree, your relationship is safe.  First, what happens to you if your lover dies, or is sent to jail for fifty years, or

is inducted into the army? Would you not be able  to survive? And Second, what do you think happens

to people when they drive away their husband or wives? They don’t die. They don’t go crazy. They

just get upset and after a time they find another lover.

Rule 1-IF people do something nice to you, do something nice to them

Rule 2- IF people do something bad to you, do something nice to them anyway, but only twice

Don’t advice third, fourth or fifth…each time you do something good to someone who does something bad

the misdeed is strengthened. Remember---rewarding behavior reinforces it—that applies to good and bad behavior. So rather than give someone a third chance, what should you do? There are four options when dealing with a situation which you find unacceptable:

                1-Toleration without resentment---IF you can’t change the situation. It is perhaps best simply to

put up with it. The beauty of this approach is that the problem cease to be a problem the moment you decide to accept it. For example, if your partner is suing you for divorces and there’s no way you can persuade her to change her mind, resign yourself to the fact to the matter. What else can you do without hurting yourself?

                2-Protest

                3-Separation

                4-Toleration with resentment--- is the choice I do not recommend as it will only increase your

misery. Unfortunately, it does seem to be the most popular of all the options we’ve considered. This is

what I call the neurotic solution to the problem; you won’t protest, you won’t walk away from the problem, so you do the worst thing possible---you accept it and resent doing so. This will only make you depressed, angry maybe even affect your health.            

                Who usually wins the power struggle? The answer is the one who wins is the one who cares the least for the relationship. For example, you and your child may counterattack many times as you watch try to train the other. As one penalty doesn’t work, the next will be sterner. No matter how nasty you each get, the struggle will reach a point where is it so intolerable that one of you will give in, or one of you will break away. And it is the one who cares the least for the relationship will win. The teenager who doesn’t care if he loses his car will defy his parent until they sell it. The worker who hates his job and can find another will tell his boss to do the dirty work himself, and will not fear being fired. The partner who

cares the least about the marriage is the one who will get his way about moving the family to a new city.

                There are six steps toward anger:------------

                Step 1-“ I want something”:

                Step 2-“I didn’t get what I wanted and am frustrated”- the  wish had been denied . Of all the desires we have, only the smallest fraction of them are ever fulfilled

                Step 3-“it is awful and terrible not to get what I want”: If you define your frustration as catastrophe, you’re had it. Depression is brought about by your  thinking

                a-you are a worthless person because you did something bad

                b-you ought to feel sorry for yourself because you are frustrated

                c-you should pity someone else

or anger:

                a-I must have my way and it is awful not to get everything I want

              b-and you are wicked for frustrating me and deserve to be punished

To remain unangry throughout your life you had better learn to question the idea that not getting your way is unbearable and must lead to a disturbance.

                Step 4-“You shouldn’t frustrate me! I must have my way”:That merely healthy wishing however

has changed into a demand and that’s bad. If you get what you demand, everything will of course be peachy creamy. But if you do not get what you think you need, you will think you need, you will think you are being deprived that the sky will fall in and you’ll just have to get mad

                Step 5-You’re bad for frustrating me”: You’re implied that if someone is bad, he is also worthless, evil, and wicked—that he and his behavior are the same. I’ve decided you have to be bad simply because there are certain characteristics you have that are offensive (sloppily suit), or physically features I find ugly ( your bad teeth), or your behavior is irritating (you brag). There are three reason people act badly for which they are not required to be blamed---

                a-stupidity---you are talking about someone with limited intelligence or skill. If your

son is mentally slow…would you blame him if he brings home poor grades? Or your daughter

who join a ballet class and dances badly?

                b-ignorance---how can you possibly be held responsible for not being able to perform acts you were never taught?

                c-emotional disturbances

                Step 6-“Bad people ought to be punished”:  You will not rest now until you have inflicted pain on another person, not because it will necessarily do him some good, but because he is not good enough to deserve anything but pain, blame. Not only it false to believe that there are such things as bad people in the world, it is also wrong to believe that serve punishment helps them behave better.

                When your wife gripes about your earning power and compares your hardest  effort to your

more successful friend you can be certain you are not going to take her  cutting remakes as  a pep talk to

go out and make a million for your sweetheart. When your husband keeps finding fault with you for not straightening up the house and points out hoe wasteful you are for not eating the heel of the bread, you normally do not want to go around with a smile on your face as you turn unnecessary light, picks up loose newspaper, and clean off lunch dishes. You sense you are being punished and regarded as a bad person

and It doesn’t do one bit of good for your soul. We will have to agree we can get more flies wit honey than with vinegar. The worse someone is to you, the nicer you ought to be to him. Killing with kindness is much saner.

             Getting mad because you didn’t get what you wanted is foolish if what you wanted is petty and insignificant. If you want to go swimming tomorrow and it rains, practically anyone in the world would say you were being a dunce and a bumpkin to get mad at the weather. Practically everyone would think you’d be an immature and very impulsive person if you smashed your dishes. One of the worst tendencies we have as mortals is to make big things out of little things. We blow situations way out of proportion, and then after creating these monsters we get all scared over what we have created.

             A frustration is the condition of wanting something and not getting it, or not wanting something

 and having it forced on you.  When you stay home and sleep but cannot because you must go to work, that is a frustration.  When you have been pleasant to someone and they take you for granted, that is

frustrating,  I pointed out that all anger is technically righteous because you have to believe you’re one hundred percent correct or you couldn’t get riled up in the first place. Anger always says

“I don’t deserve this kind of treatment, so therefore it must stop this instant” You can believe this about things and people, it makes little difference. Granted, you may be right about all those points, but why

does that mean you must get what you want merely because you’re right? Since when is this supposed to be a fair world? Who says we must be decent to others? Who says all  people will be treated fairly

and justly? This is an imperfect world and sometime it stinks, so you’d better get used to the smell.

Sure, you wanted things to turn out in your favor, your anger arises not because you didn’t get your

way but because you foolishly thought you had to have your way. Who says so? Show me the law that

states that Ali cannot get shaft but everyone else in this silly world can? Your trouble is that you’re confused wanting fair treatment with thinking you had to have fair treatment. Why do you have to have fair treatment? Sure it would be better if you got your, but so would it better if we never had floods, cancer, war, and bad breath.

               The one type of person most people do not want to be close to is a dictator, someone telling them to do this or that without any regard to their own wishes Has it ever occurred to you, however, that when you’re angry you are always a dictator. It’s easy enough to see this when you recall what it is that makes you sore in the first place: your demands. They demand their own way and believe that those who disobey

them are bad, should be severely dealt with and that mistakes are horrible.

            Instead of blaming people for their actions, it is infinitely wiser and more charitable to separate their behavior from their selves. You do this all the time with your children. Your child spills his milk and you dislike the mess. But do you also hate the child? Do you think he’s bad because he did something bad?

If someone keeps on telling you how bad you are, you can bet your last bottle of poison the you’re going to believe him after a while. Once this happens you take over where mother and father, or spouse left off and call yourself the same negative things they once called you. Hating yourself secretly, doubting your personal value, thinking everyone else is better than you makes you go through life with your psychological tail between your legs.  And so you know why? Because you think you stink so badly no now would want to do anything with you. You find yourself friendless. Others are really no shying away from you. It is you who are shying away from others because you remember what a good-for-nothing you are and how nobody in his right mind could really want your company.

             This inescapable fact should be clear to everyone: the more you blamed people, the worse they get. Beat up your child for earning poor grades and his grades will go down, not up. The person being attacked is barely able to listen to what is being said about his behavior---all he hears is what is being said about him as a person. That’s why blame often has such little effect on those who  need correction. How often does a man go to jail and get the feeling that the court, the police, and the prison guards are there to honestly help him? He’s there to be punished, not corrected.

            The behavior you get from others is so closely determine by what you expect from them that you can actually predict what a person will do by what you expect from him. This was shown with an experiment with a group of kids and the teacher.

             The Most common reason for hating yourself is that you judge yourself by your actions just as you hate others when you judge them by their action. Hate yourself and you’ll punish yourself. You can

punish yourself by literally beating your body or whipping yourself. Or marry a bum, unconsciously convince yourself you can’t do a job and then allow yourself of fail.

8-FAULTY THINKING:

Once one accepts something which is not true, all subsequent action and reaction will be based

upon a false belief. You must proceed with the idea that you are presently hypnotized by false belief,

concepts and values.----Limited by mistakes certainties. Forcibly reject any idea which threaten our

belief. Major block to change is that we do not want to recognize and accept reality because

our mistaken certainties have distorted our perception. Alice through the Looking Glass: before

she could understand her new world, she had to accept new truth about old familiar things.

Main mistaken certainty:

                a-that others are smarter ,wiser or more intelligent than we are. And, so, we look

to them for our happiness and welfare. The moment we compare yourself with anyone you are subjecting yourself to psychological slavery. Everytime you make a mistake or do something you feel

does not meet someone else’s standard, you feel “less than” others. You then blame yourself and

feel guilty for not doing what you think you should (need to do better than  others)

Stop all value-judging, cultivate the use of two familiar but often neglected words: wise and unwise

Nothing you do is right or wrong, good and bad. It is only wise and unwise

to -you can do anything and be anything you want

OTHER FAULTY THINKING IDEAS------------:

1-you can do anything and be anything you want

2-the best things in life are free:

the best things I in life cost the earth. Clean water does not come free. Clean air is extremely costly., Food is not free, nor are clothing, housing, and practically anything else that makes life comfortable.

3-Justice is blind:

                if justice is truly blind then it must follow that the innocent will always be freed and the guilty will always be punished. Power and influence will have no effect on the outcome of a verdict, nor will a man’s color or his religion. If justice is blind then the legal system must work perfectly at all time and

lawyers who are on the wrong side of the issue must always lose. Obviously this is nothing more than a flight of fancy. Human being are far from perfect.

4-You can’t legislate morality:

                People behave decent ways for three reasons

                1-it is simply right and proper to do the decent and right thing

                2-our religions tell us that certain behaviors are immoral.

                3-the law places an obligation upon them to do so

5-It’s the principle that counts:

                The view takes that positions that an act is wrong simply because it has a degrees of immorality

connect to it and it makes little difference whether it is a great deal or immorality or al little immorality.

What is wrong with some behavior is not the behavior it self but the degree to which it exists. If you habitually tell the truth in every detail because you believe that a little falsehood is just as bad as a big one,

they you will lose friends. You believe that a lie is a lie and that the size of a lie has nothing to do with the issue. You might say the same about stealing. If stealing is bad then it doesn’t matter whether a person is caught stealing one dollar to a hundred thousand. The crime is the same.

6-Honesty is the best policy:

                I think of a number of instances where being honest with someone when no mighty issue hangs

in the balance is simply being cruel. It is at such times that the civilized and gentle person does not clobber his loved one or his friend with brutal honesty. Let’s face it, to be honest means sometime that people will learn things that they don’t need to hear. It is frequently a painful experience to face the

truth. If it does no great good to face the truth then why do we have to insist upon being so honest that

the truth be revealed? If someone is dying and asks if you have any complaints against him. Would you be brutally honest and express every degree of disapproval you had toward him? If you did you’d be a callous clod.

IRRATIONAL IDEAS:

1-Being unloved or disapproved of proves you are bad and worthless. Rejections hurts. You have value

only if people important to you regard you high. If they respect and love you, then you are an acceptable human being. *****Why does someone’s rejection turn you into an evil, rotten, or worthless person.

Who are they to pass judgment anyway?

2-Behaving badly, stupidly, or immorally makes you a bad and worthless person. Only if you are outstanding, a high achiever and nearly perfect can you think will of yourself. Mistakes are terrible and prove how bad you really are. ****the only way any of us can ever be free of errors is when we’re dead.

All other living people will makes mistakes.

3-There are bad and wicked people In the world and blaming or punishing them severely will cure them

of this evil. Screaming, beating, torture are all good methods. ****Rubbish! People and their

behavior are not the same. We cannot logically conclude that bad behavior are not the same. We cannot logically conclude that bad behavior makes a bad person since the same person perform many, many

behavior, some bad and cruel, but some wonderful and kind.

4-It is awful and catastrophic when you don’t get your way. Life should be fair. And if you’re right

you certainly deserve to get everything you’re entitled to. Not to get your way is unbearable.

*****You never get your way. The world was not made to suit your particular preferences. Not

getting your way is irritating, annoying, and sad, but not horrible.

5.It is better to rely on people who are stronger to more powerful that you if you want to feel secure. They

know how to make smart decision. They have connection and money which can help you when in trouble

 Having all this going for you will make you feel as secure as a child with as millionaire or king for a

father. *****On the contrary. The more you rely on others the less you will rely on yourself. What do you

think will  happen to you if-the one you rely on dies or dislikes you or moves away?  That leaves you

like a orphan.

9-STOP BEING PASSIVE----BE PROACTIVE:

                Fifty million Frenchmen can be wrong. If doing your own thing doesn’t hurt anyone else, what right have others to make you stop? None, I say. And that frees me and you from living through

the eyes, thoughts, and tastes of others. To assert yourself in situation like this, you had better figure that

you’re right and everyone else is wrong. Fifty million Frenchman can be wrong, contrary to the old

saying. Thoreau suggest you might be listening to a different drummer. Even more to the point, however, you might be  the only one marching to the right beat. It happens all the time, that one person is right

and the whole world is wrong. Remember the wright brother, einsten and Columbus.

a-OBSERVATION: Passive people are dominated because they allow it.

                we cooperated with our aggressors because we hope to gain an advantage. The student how wants

a good grade doesn’t disagree with the teacher. The secretary doesn’t not slap the boss’s face, because show wants her job

b-OBSERVATION: The person dictating your life learned when and how to do so by you, the victim

                You became a doormat because your parent trained you to be one. They rewarded you for

being passive. A dictator is rewarded by weak and scared people for being mean and nasty. And the meaner and nastier he is, the quicker they hop to and so his bidding. So why should the bully change?

You are dominated because you allow it and even teach your bully to dominate you.

c-OBSERVATION: Acts of assertion do not immediately improve relationships. They make them worse.

They will: a-try to reason with you

                   b-second tactic would be to wept and pleaded and tried to make you feel guilty

                   c-threaten total rejection…..I’ll disown you

                   d-threaten suicide

***change generally brings on some degree of suffering

d-OBSERVATION: Passive people usually suffer from one or more of the following Fears:

                A-Fear of injury

                B-Fear of failure

                C-Fear of Hurting other people’s feelings

                If I can make you feel bad, worthless, and guilty because you won’t do me a favor, I will

have the same control over  you a jailer would have. Your body and soul would belong to me. Guilt

is the one of the most frequently used  techniques for controlling others. Consider the following

reasons for defending yourself.

1-You are human and a sinner. So what do people want of you, perfection? They aren’t perfect.

Where do they get  off insisting you must be?

2-Those who lay guilt on you aren’t being all that righteous as they’d have you believe. They may want you to think they ‘re pure and superior to you. Don’t believe that. What’s so good and pure about anybody who wants you to feel like dirt?           

                D-Fear of rejection: you were taught that rejection proved something: that you were worthless, or

why else would someone reject you?

                E-Fear of financial insecurity

EXCUSES,EXCUSES: To get control of your life, it is imperative that you not make endless excuses why

you cannot.  ***a relationship will deteriorate rather than improve when you make excessive sacrifices

to please the other person.

                A SELFISH PERSON WANTS SOMETHING FOR NOTHING

                A SELF-INTERESTED PERSON HAS EVERY INTENTION OF DOING SOMETHING IN RETURN FOR THOSE FAVORS

                What’s selfish about wanting your wife to bring you a cup of coffee if you just did the dishes for

her? And what’s selfish about her asking you to do the dishes if she cooks the meal?

                To feel guilty about wanting a kind deed returned is neurotic. It spoils the other person,

makes you miserable if done often enough, and threatens to sour the marriage, the friendship.

Is it wrong to be interested in yourself, your looks, your health, your advancement? Would

you seriously suggest you have no right to clean clothes? That’s self-interest. To a good

meal? That’s self-interest. To shower or bath? That’s self interest.

               

FAN: KIM RESPOND TO MY BLOG ....A LONG TIME AGO

Hi,I was told the ringer was off. When the time is right, another night. You and your embryo lines, who does your typing over there on the other side. I know , I am being patient. There is something about this. A reason for over there, with the movies and not me over here, in my little mail box. So you've got to be so cute. Of course, I wonder are you from another country, do you have an foreign accent, or not at all. Or just the New Yorker sound. What kind of voice, I wonder, even just curious, your heighth. It doesn't matter, its whats inside, to me, that is standing out so much in the first place. Although, just curious, and wondering if you had a clearer picture, I just wanted to see your face a little clearly..........but I see your soul and so I am not making the outer things a big thing to me. So I'm not pushing it, if you feel comfortable whenever to a closer shot of you, up to you, but I would be curious. But I don't think it would at all change the way I already feel towards reading you, towards thinking of you, even your picture, but I can't see clearly, I don't know how long ago that picture was takened. My picture that was on the top part of my site, was very recent, 2 mos ago maybe, the bottom was last December...........I do not want to make the outer things a thing here.....................just curious. But it would not change at all, the way I have been drawn towards you inside, at all......my sister said the same thing, she said she loved his soul, she did not care beyond that, she loved the way he was and that meant the most to her. I sort of agree, it is a big thing, to love and not just the outer thing.........

However, I happened to ask one of my sisters here, how is it going with her guy online. They have been online like endless, they watch movies and tv. together online, he calls her up and says honey put on the trading spaces, I could not believe it, its my younger sister, and I just asked how is it going, and how did it happen for you online, how long were you online communicating, before you actually got on the phone. I guess I was just curious, she told me the story, and told me she was so nervous, when she called him. She didn't give her number, because of reasons, guest staying around. So he gave his number to her, because she couldn't give hers to him at the time. So she told me that when she first called him, she goes hello and hangs up, because she was so nervous, calling him, but they were online chatting first for a while. So he was expecting her at the moment to call him. But I thought it was cute, her shyness too. But she got past that, and as time went on she said she got more comfortable and use to hearing his voice, now they are pros at everything and she loves him and he loves her, and he is moving out this way in October, Hes going to move to Oklahoma area, shes moving that way too. They just clicked and I asked her, are you two alike, she said yes alot alike and some differences, but alot alike. They are on the phones everyday. He knows everything. I could not believe they would watch t.v. shows together long distance, until he gets out here, moved. I would not even think to do that......... at a distance. But they love each other and met online. Timing seemed to be right, well you just have to be patient..with things.
Hope your day is bright. B

Street Angel, ScarletRain, VioletsRblue, I have been so blocked, it is endless, I have felt so resentful, that I would refuse to watch others movies, I don't know why I felt so resentful. Its like I know I will have to, but my purpose for it is not to get lost into it, to study it, and yes to get lost, but it bothers me.
Greatly. I am extremely seeing my movies only. Thats why. I just dare to start one on the screen, film festivals. To make an impact and never been one that sat in front of the TV every night. I know my purpose in an area, that so many things have been in my way, this should have been long ago for me. The movies have stirred within me. I know I have to get things out, I know I have to an appreciation for the artistic area, that I see myself in. Not in front of the camera, in person. That should have been a long time ago. Its not a fantasy. Its a reality within. To express up on the screen how I see the picture. Bits and pieces, the scenery, the camera shots, the music, the characters, the obstacles, the desired end and the meaning and messages to get across. I cannot for now, think to entertain. Yes I can combine fiction of course but its almost near a reality, just bits and pieces to over exaggerate as magnifying the truth, one little truth and can twist it to go many ways, but which way does it flow. Scary. I am a little resentful that its taken so long. It should not have this should have been long ago. I would have already been somewhere to heights unknown. But I would have gone all the way with a passion, extremely focused and driven to create I what I see already movies and I don't watch the Television, or go to the theaters, I sort of feel resentful, But let me work on one project, and just one project that gets me going and I'm on a roll. With meaning, with purpose with a message. It may be a little different than what I see up on the screen. But how would I know unless I watch. Then if I create, I am not copying, I just will be original within my own views. I should probably not be letting this out. But I will anyway.

Two areas that come to me of an intense passion and desire for all my life. Not for fame at all. Not my goal, not my desire, just my work, and my work to touch and just be appreciated, not fame, not money at all. Just to Express. I've also repressed, obsessed with one area of my life, that meant the most to me than anything in this world, the one thing, that would light the flame, to burn the fire and just let me overcome I feel it would be great therapy for me. Looking back, in the office just one scene, just a little scene in one of them, in thinking I was going crazy, to the Psychologist first time ever, but I needed him to tell me was I going crazy. So intense everything. Just something I had never heard it told to me before. But I knew much stirred within me, so much, its not just one, but many to roll on the screen out of me. But for the one moment in reality, thinking to hear one thing, but only to hear another, sort of scared me, no I was not crazy, that was not what I heard to scare me, yes it would if I had heard that from him. Of all the testing and writing done, not once, over the years. He said, and I will never forget the look on his face and how he said it to me, That your life can be made into a MOVIE but not right now. I knew , I knew what he meant by that, I had a healing process of somewhat to go through, and just the flame that allows to break through the obstacles, the blocks in my way, that sets me free, and I will roll over to exceed beyond, all the limitations, that I believe, and that I believe that God will allow me, others would like to keep me down, its as if Helen Keller came back to life, I was blind I could not see, what such a handicapped, an impossible dream of a MIRACLE. That I would take all to the world up on the screen, but it would not be in the internet...............just one that I begin, it will not end. My first totally absorbed into it, and I can see the picture clearly as it unfolds, It is very strange, that here you are, opposite of me in the way of watching, yet the very pieces of a puzzle that fits purposely, amazingly, strangely a meaning and a purpose that you do absorb yourself into the movies. Although many do, many do not. But I always knew he was going to bring it out of me. I will hide it, and I don't want it pulled out of me, until its the right time, it was just click, the flame ignited and I am determined. Somehow, someway. I cannot rush into it, I will just flow into it, destiny, and Grandma Moses here I come, with all limitations and obstacles before me, thats what I like, just a challenge, why not. Dam why do I choose things so difficult, in the area I needed it to be easy, I chose difficult, obstacles, extreme challenges, but that area only kept me blocked from all the other areas I was meant to be there. All the way from as little girl, standing on the doorsteps of a church at night, with a puppy and a paper sack, with one easter dress inside. Can not tell you how I got that. But its just a little scene that flashes back, goes from one extreme to another. Its just a look into the mirror and she sees. Not only do I see, strangely, but I always wondered which way, I knew one of them has to come the ending, which way it was going to go. But I feel so weak, my mind has been so covered with cobwebs so to speak, and can't think clearly in your turmoil, but surely to be set free........I don't know what character I will be.............ok I am rambling........maybe I shoud not be saying these little things............The screen is before me..........You on the other side, is shoving it into my face to see, you don't even know..............you do not know.................sure many are obsessed with movies, that is there way of escape thinking reality, with fiction, or that they may find some meaning in it, and feel life in it,,,,,,and thats how they feel life is to be for them, just like in the movies.............I was going to give up on love, and just give in, so long as I can also have my dreams, the little girls dream. She was dreaming big then. She was a little dreamer. The older you get, and so much of misery that hits you,,,,,,you sort of weary down to dreaming........you no longer are just dreaming anymore......you want to see in reality. I thought that it should be hard for me, I made it hard for me, I don't know..........but that should not have been my challenge, I should have moved on from that, to grow and open up to the challenges before me, not my love to be a challenge. My love should have been easily. Easily for me, as well..................as I child I was drawn to the movies, and very drawn and I remember saying to my dad at the drive inn, daddy, I tapped him on his shoulder from the backseat, he said shut up, be quiet, I was so sensitive it hurt my feelings him yelling at me, I sat back, sad but I had something to tell him, I had something to tell him, about me. That I could see. I wanted to express it to him in the middle of the movie, I sat quietly and leaned forward once again, sensitive to my move towards, and tapped him lightly on his shoulder again, daddy, daddy, he yelled at me, he said what is it, what is it, I felt again he never wanted to listen to me, but I went ahead even so it was not gently towards me, I was gently towards him, because I loved him, he was the star in my eyes, any way, I said to him, when he yelled and said, what, what ,what is it, so I would shut up. I said daddy, I want to be up on that screen. I don't think he said anything, to pay too much to me. So I leaned back, and thought at least I told him, I had a need to express and I would not give up, even though I had to deal with his aggravation on me...........anyway, I got lost for just a moment, what was my point of thought..........Just that I will never forget. Everything, is pieces and each piece is intense and ties into the others and they make scenes, they lead up to its story and its meaning and purpose. Of course, out of all the areas of things to choose in someones interest in life, two areas that come strong for me, but there are others you just feel you could maybe accept and get by with it and it not really become your passion. But even so there may be two, I have always had an interest in a few areas, but just would have wanted balance to grow in those areas. Two areas seem to go together for me. Psychology, some things are a gift and Film School, some things are a gift and somethings just seem to come naturally for me, I guess. But you don't know, how, what I mean. How that people can have a knack for things, and almost never intended school for them and when they show up to school, its only confirming what they already know, but just intensifying it to even more openess and more intense study of it, but its already there.
You know I am rambling to just roll some things out of me. Then I close up again to it. Totally, your writing and things I have seen on the screen of you, has opened me up, more than I had been and yet, I'm not completely clear into focus yet. Yes there is a story, yes there are many to tell and many characters to life in them, Very strong characters. I always felt that one day some of these characters I would like to expose them up on the screen, of course change the names to protect the innocent, or the guilty, and their ghost come crawling out their closets, up on the screen to cringe, thats not me, of course its not, its not you, the mask is only what the world does see. But lets get naked here, up on the screen and I would love it, to such honesty and openess. You do on the internet, it amazes me, you are meant to be up on the screen, because I am...................its a world I cannot explain.

However stumbling across not so clearly, I lost my train of thought. Back to such things that come so naturally for people, that going to school only confirms what they already I have a natural flowing creativity for, just letting it grown and getting it organized and opening you up to even more understanding and just more appreciation for it. When you have a purpose for it.

Not to say this is one of my areas these days, are way too late for me, in this area, so I am being very realistically. Just an example to use, of natural abilities not learned. Just exist, thats all. Example: When I went to Wichita State University, of course my life did not take me the road to complete. I went so many intense directions. That I was not able to focus, nor to make the committment. I honestly wished that nothing got in my way. I could just imagine how far I would have been, right now. So I feel a little resentful, honestly. But when I went to WSU, I took of course ballet, acting, and yes I remember chemistry and sociology, those classes I found fascinating. But in acting and never went to school for it, just took a class. I love learing, but you do have to have peace of mind for it. I'm not that strong if I don't have peace of mind. Some can proceed forward beyond all things, some are too sensitive and let everything get to them and in their way, that was me. Terrible it was. Dam I wished it was not that way. However, again, I keep getting distracted. Back to school. In the University class, it was a large class. I am very shy, an introvert, and I took this class and I think it was the 2nd or third night of class and the Teacher gave us, a little project to do, giving his only some words, adjectives to use to describe where we were and where we are and where are we going, to do a skit on the stage to express some of the adjectives we choose, without speaking a word, but to express it. It was a challenge for me, and I loved challenges. But problem was, I was shy, to get up in front of that big classroom and up on that big stage by myself in front of everyone. It really scared me, but I went past my fears, because it was a challenge for me in an area I felt very drawn to. So I sweating it immensely, you don't know how much, scared my heart was beating so fast. It was tormenting to me, and school is suppose to be fun and challenging and all. But that class scared me, because you had to get up in front of everyone and be exposed. I like to cover, where as you like to do the opposite and I love that........because it is for real. I like whats for real. Not plastic, but we have a tendency to hide sometimes. Anyway, the night of the class, heart beating, almost anxiety, should I just walk out and run now, shes going to call my name and am I going to just freeze up there or what is going to happen with me. I did not know, it was my first time ever doing that. Never no other classes at all in that area. Everyone else had more education and experience than I, so I felt a little intimidated and afraid of that, up against others like that and not me like that. So it was hard for me. But when she called my name,,,,,heart beating so bad, someone rescue me, do I have to go through this agony of fear. Ok I went past it, as soon as I hit the stage, that was it. I blocked the room out, it did not exist to me. Totally lost into it, it came for me easily. I did my thing and yes expressed and it was perfect timing to the tee. Perfect, just came naturally. I fell to the floor in the end and laid on that stage, in perfect timing. Totally I rested from what I had to go through. It was one moment of dead silence and the whole room clapped immensely, compared to the others that got up that, I had more of an audience responding. As I got up and I was just getting ready to walk off the stage, the teacher said, Brend just stay right there. She wouldn't let me off the stage until she finished talking about what I did. She turned to the class and said, class what she has just done, is very hard to do and we haven't even got there. and she turned and looked at me, with a smile and said, Brenda you are very ambitious, and something else I don't remember and here I was like a scared little girl, afraid, and I didn't even know what it was I was doing, naturally so school would have only taught me what I already knew to just do naturally. Thats what I could see. That was just an example. But I haven't been out there, to find out things more, to learn and I would love to be learning lots of things and put those things I learn into use.

One other one and I am closing myself up. Because you put the movies before me, thats why its all coming out, because of you.......your writing, your interest areas in my face, just exactly what I need to be seeing. All these pieces for a purpose in everything. I knew you were a mirror, but too much it scares me. Oh I have seen more, I just may not be mentioning it right now, one thing at a time, when it overwhelms me. One little piece at a time. Ok one more example, of being original, not copying, not having studied, but its there, just all needs to be brought out, thats been buried, surpressed, everything that means alot to me, but the most important of them all to me is what you have expressed, is everything, everything and its all the flame to anything of anyones abilities, passions, desires, dreams, interest, anything whatever it may be. It all grows from that very little seed, that is so powerful, to almost create miracles, and I believe that everything would become a miracle to me.
Once again, I keep wondering, trying to get back to the example. Ok, forbear with me. This is alot for me. When back then I was told by the Psychologist that drama would be good therapy for me and Yoga, that was it. He thought, he knew how to do therapy on me. I have ideas for therapy for people better that I have seen or heard how therapist and doctors deal with their patients. I already have a creative mind in plan for therapy for people. I haven't gone to school yet. Ok back to the stage. I know you would say, get to the point, I feel like I'm beating around the bush here. I could have a tendency to do that.
Ok, he told me drama, so I had gone to see some plays, and I ended doing a few plays, small roles, but my roles stood out as main character, and I after it was all over, I took a break from it, there again, I got sidetracked, and stayed away from even going back to the theater. To not even watch, because I always have this feeling, the things I watch, makes me want to not just be a passive person, watching, it makes me want to be involved and right up there and I resent it when I am not. So I will not watch. If I watch, I've got to do more than just watch, somehow, in someway, begin. Or I will not be happy just to see, something in front of me like a tease, thats the way I see it. Anyway, after disappearing from the theater and I was not pursuing this at all in a professional way, it was just an outlet for me. I showed up a long while after again to the theater to go see play, out of the clear blue, after the show, the director came up to me and we were just talking, and I could feel my desire again, because I watched, makes me have the desire to express however and whatever way I can, a challenge. So we talked and I asked her about what other shows were coming up, were there any auditions coming up, and she said, yes as a matter of fact I do have something that I think you might fit in well to do. I asked her well what is it, because she personally thought I could do it and had never done before, although she remembered me from way days past. She said its a lead role, a two person play, called the HouseKeeper. She said can you come back to do a reading for it and I thought oh my god, I don't think I can do a lead role and learn and memorize all that many lines, and plus I was going through depression even then, and its hard to focus and study in depression it does affect you. I thought this is a challenge, this is a passion, but can I do it and memorize through what I am going through. I took the book home and read and thought oh my, this is perfect for me to do, just perfect, but all these lines, there is no way, I am afraid to committ myself to do this and the show not go on without me. That maybe I will be waisting each others time on doing this. Just afraid because so much lines and I don't come from a theater background at all. I'm like one you just take off the streets and put them up on the stage as lead. She had a lot of faith in me. To see past it, I didn't have resumes, headshots. So I sat with the other person that was going to be involved in this play, he had so much schooling, and in movies, soaps, he gave up his business to pursue this professional, and he was older than me. I always thought age gets in my way for things, very sensitive to it. I try to be realistic, not some big dreamer, come down to reality, come down to the earth..........stay humble. I was. I read, he was impressed, she said, you've got it. He felt insecure with me. Unsure that he could do it. I guess it was my looks, we had to fake some kisses, express some love and hate. He was the writer with the ego, and I ended up being the true writer in the end with no ego, very humble. I was his mirror. Thats not the story. But was in a way. However, I started doing my reading and studying and taking sections at a time, as time would go by, I thought I still have a long ways off, and what I have done already is hard, and I have more to go through.
Throughout the whole process I was taking the script with me every I went, It did not leave me for one moment, obssessed, I had to overcome these obstacles, this challenge before me, I could not resist. To also remember, depression, does not make you feel like getting up on the stage in front of everyone and pretend everything is ok, I am just this character for you on stage. Leave everything else behind you. I had to and I did. Amazingly, I was way off book, before my partner, I thought something is wrong here, I am off book and he still has to have the crutch, and he has way more experience and schooling. I was patient and also very humble still. The director, she just could not find anything to tell me what to do. I was doing what seemed to come naturally and just fit it perfectly. She had to constantly tell him what to do, step by step. She no longer concentrated on me, she just observed me, she had to concentrate on him how to flow into me. I sort of got a little bored waiting for her to go through that with him. Although, not bad just lets get this going here, my feeling. So we made it through. We finished every scene, I had it down to a tee, and I learned so much by doing it, blocking, movements helped me to memorize lines, I finally had structure and organization to what I already felt seemed to flow naturally, but I had order and movements and timing perfectly. Naturally. So long of rehearses throughout the week, friends I had to put off, unless they came with me, to just sit back and watch, or if I went out that book went with me, my life, went with me. It seemed, the show must go on and I cannot let anyone down. No matter what misery. Hard times, even, no matter what I had to be there, but I was drawn to it, I am not drawn unless there is something to it, that maybe I just don't know, but will find out later. Well, we did shows after shows every week-end, and the press there, big crowds, and he again, kept messing up his lines, and you would think it would throw me off to go blank, I had to help him. He got stuck and went blank on the stage in the middle of a show, my mind had to think quickly, how am I going to give him his lines, I took a ring off my finger and laid on the desk before, so he could get the message, what next to say,,,,,,,,,,,ding, ding, the light dawned he caught on, he grabbed his next lines,,,,,,,,,oh was I sweating it,,,,,,,after that show, he thanked me so much and said you amaze me, how swift , calm and so cool you did that, to cover for me, and help me get my lines back, he always kept saying Brenda you are amazing and you are the one that has takened this show, you are the star on this show, and I give you all my respect, I was very humble. Not egotistical, I just appreciated his honesty, that could really affect a man, with his ego, with all his credentials up against me with none, and make him feel insecure, but we clicked in chemistry and he knew I was very understanding, patient, easy going, easy to work with. No attitudes, and helpful to make the whole picture complete. Not that I tried to take the show, because that would come through, it was just naturally, I wanted him to shine just as well, not just me. He was a part of me, I wanted him to be his best too. So no competition here, we working on it together. But he did not stop to let me know how he felt, so impressed by me and that I was so humble and not even pursuing the area like he and most people. After the show a gentlemen from New York who is into Broadway, a professional theater person, came up to me as I was mingling into the crowd when I got off stage, people just complimenting, asking me where I was from , what am I doing, this man came up to me and he said, and I will never forget, he said, I talked to your director about you, and he said, I am not going to tell you who you remind me of, but it was back in the days of Cary Grant and he said, that is who you remind me of and that I know you are not copying her, your very original, but you have every potential of her, I'm not going to tell you who, you''ll just have to ask your director, find out from her. I was sort of curious, curious, who could he be talking about. That he emphasized such sincerity and intensely needed to tell me. So later on it cleared out I asked, who was that man, she told me, and she said he came up to me and asked about you and made some comments about you. I said I know he came up to me too, but he would n't tell who he was talking about that I remind him of. I was curious to ask you. She said, Brenda, I agree, she said, it was
Betty Davis...............I said Betty Davis,,,,,,,I don't look like her, she said its not the look its the style, your mannerisms, your attitude, how you express yourself, the character, I couldn't understand it. So anyway, I got curious to find out some old movies of hers to see what are they talking about............However I guess , I could see,,,,,,,,,how deep, how intense it scared me.........but fun,,,,,it was fun,,,,it was fun learning and experiencing, new things............I've got to go, this is a lot, of writing and a lot of reading,,,,,,,,,and I cannot go over everything is too much, too overwhelming for me reading you again,,,,,,,,,,,,,but I loved it. So into it. It just flows. Where I belong.......but scary the feeling,,,,,,,,,I still like am I believing, or seeing things like just my imagination running wild with me.......playing tricks on me.........terribly, fantasy or what reality,,,,,,,,,,,wow,,,,,,,,,,,your a movie to me.........that I am into.
Love Brenda

Dear Doc,
Hi, how are you. fine I hope. As for me I am crying. your poem
was so beautiful.I love letters like that.It's alway's the smallest things in life
that alway's seem to matter the most to me.You my dear are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and you are one man I never want to be without. Oh, hell'o
Darling, I am kind. I want you to go with me on saturday. to the block party. it's not
until the evening. please Alex, say you will be with me.And next saturday, I have
another party and I want you to be with me for that one to.Ever since I meet you I
am so crazy for you. Your voice does something to me. please take my hand and
take a chance on romance.please say yes. you won't be sorry. I will love you. I
will take special care of you. I will give you the happiness that your looking for
and deserve.I will make your day your night for the rest of your life. I will only be to happy to be with you.I will give you a night to remember for the rest of your life.
you are so safe with me.I want you to see what real love feels like.please belive me your search will be over.I won't promise you a good time. I will guarantee that. I want
to wake up in your arms.some times I feel like you rubbing off on me.I feel very safe
with you and I feel that nothing can ever harm me because of you. please call me.

Love Terry,

Very stranger here.

Hi Alex,

I remember I sent you an email, I mentioned a song that sort of kept coming to me. But it first came with the thought of a flower grows, the feeling I got when I was emailing you, this song sort of just came to me out of the clear blue and I think I said it was the song for the moment. But here again, I did not know all the words to that song, that just sort of creeped up on me in the middle of an email to you. I had just even asked my mother if she knew the song that goes something like, I believe for every raindrop that falls a flower grows. I said the words to her, she knew the song, so she started singing parts of it to me, but couldn't remember the words either. But I only asked her, because I felt the song, like coming to me very strong when I wrote you an email. I don't remeber which one it was. The song came to me thinking about you as I was writing to you.

Now I am totally flipped here. I have to tell you why. Out of the clear blue, the very next day. A woman that I know, who is a Christian lady and sends me things through email and most of the time I have never bothered to read what she sends, I'll just delete, I never send her anything back, no response. I have not heard from her in a long while, but out of the clear blue she sends me this. First when I saw 4 emails from her, I was going to delete. But something just told me go a head and check out to see what she is sending me, my first time in doing it. I clicked on the very first email out of the 4 she sent and this is what I got coming to me in the email to me.
I swear I totally flipped, because she is one to send religious things to me, and I am not religious, however I do believe in God and the things of God, I just am not religious, but I do believe very much. That anything is possible with God. Even though I have prayed about things, and I feel he never heard me, I wondered why. I thought if he loves me, he would not let me suffer. I asked why. No answer. But I always seemed to have faith in him even so I could never see anything with my eyes. Even in my pain, I still believed. But this totally just flipped me out, when it came across my screen what she sent to me, that I had just sent an email, to you I think the day before and this song came to me in writing to you. So I was mumbling the song to you with words, trying to remember them. I couldn't. Then today, I get this out of the clear blue. Its not a religious song at all, but she sent it to me. This is what I got from her and I don't know, but when it came across my screen, I'm like does God know whats going on here, or does she have Esp. Something is strange here. However I am forwarding what she sent me, to you. People picking up my thoughts or what?

I jumped from my seat, and ran to someone here and said there is that song on my screen with the words for it for me. From this person that doesn't know anything what I'm thinking or doing, nothing about me. She knows me, I know her, but we don't talk, she would but I don't. However here it is, don't care for the singer much, or so much the graphics but what I do care about is the meaning and the purpose that it came to me. Touched me. In thinking of you. Brenda

I can hide my intensity, I can express feelings, sometimes very dramatically. It comes out that way sometimes through writing, naturally. I don't know why it comes out that way, like drama for me, I guess I feel it that way, dramatic for me. I am dramatic, naturally and don't mean to be.

Just need the balance and try to find the balance. I express things intense, that I see and feel that most people, would take the very same thing and not be as intense or dramatic as I can be. But it can make an impact, a very little simple thing, I can magnify, with such intensity and drama easily, because that is how I see through my eyes the world.

But right now, only the world I have fallen into, for so long, introverted, creative, the same in suffering, pain, weariness, misery, depression, stress, not good. Not good for us, not good at all. Its a time for a change, don't like it that way. It puts me in a weary stressful feeling, that I can relate to, why, why, why. We took a path of pain, when we should be enjoying life and not just perceiving everything in such a narrow minded way, of that inner intense world we took to shelter because of fear, that it caused us to go that way.

Because we were very sensitive, open, and desired good things, things that are meant to be, good for us that we need, love the same. Its been too much pain. Too much pain that I suffered, so needlessly, so long, like endlessly, without you.

Why did I have to go through all that pain, I should have been so much further in all my abilities and dreams, that I lost by the way and wearied to even bother to even reach and time went by, and the very first thing that I sent you, under EyesSerene, was every bit me. It scared me, to think.

I saved every bit of what I sent, that I don't forget. Whatever is given to me, I save, I cherish, I want to believe and keep, sentimental, to believe and I keep and love, and care for, love, and want him to have whats good. A crazy fool for love, that just ended up in pain, myself the same, a crazy fool for love.

I will not like them that hurt you and believe me, I have a way about me, to make my points. What I love, I cherish, I love and keep, protective of , sensitive to all his pain, he went through. But I the same as you. With all the egos and games, people play. That were not meant for you. Just only for a time and that was it. Even if the times were good or bad. The one who loves you wants whats good for you, your well-being. To nurture, plant the seeds of love, like a garden grows.Taking care of it, daily basis and root out the weeds, that would choke its life, of the seed, of love. That is planted in open ground, to love, be watered, make the soft the ground to receive, dig deep, to plant, the seeds of love. Like a garden grows, loving tenderly, sensitive, but also myself afraid, fear it will go away, fear that I may say too much, fear that I may not say enough, fear as to how much does he want to know. I want to see you clearly. I want to know you dearly, I do not want you to go away, I do not want to die. Why the journey, alone, without you, I could feel to die. Without no sunshine when shes gone, without no sunshine when hes gone.

Even if these days had seemed no hope, no sun to shine, feelings at times, without you. I would never, go take my life to make it end, I would cry out in my agony, and maybe feel no hope, but that is because of depression, my dear there is no medicine better in the world, then to have what you always longed for and needed to just come your way and never, to ever go away, even when it seems I am sleeping, I am quiet, I am thinking.

I believe in hope, I believed, even in my pain.
I believe, in every for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows, I believe for every dark of night, a candle glows. I believe that everyone that goes away, someone will come, to show the way, I forgot the words, its been so long, since I believed, but I believe in every star that shines, what else to rhyme,,,,,,I know, thats not the words to it,,,,,,,I forgot. But it came to me,a flower grows, I believe that in every dark of night, a candle glows, I don't know the words to that song, coming to me. Out of the clear blue. Where is the song for the moment. Seemed to just creep up on me, what words they were for me. I believe I need to read. The Spectrum of Love, it came to me, last night, its meaning, its purpose. I could not find the meaning to such the words I longed to hear and yet I heard and read, it had no meaning, until I found a place to fit, its meaning, not happy, to be, one without it. No meaning it was as if it were lifeless and put away. Till I took it down to read again, that I may feel hope, that I may see Love, that I may feel love, that I may give love and then it would have meaning. A purpose, a place for it, if loved and received.

Two to speak the same things, same time, same need, same intensity, same everything, the same words to read. Same feeling, same dreams. Its not completely???? Those words are words to speak, that came to me. That poem showed up out of the clear blue, but it had no meaning and purpose, till I found you.

Yes it was meant to be loved and achieve our dreams. Still, we are sensitive, to think is this another one of those things, that we think and feel, and we get so close to saying maybe this will be, or maybe not again, we both go through. Is there hope, do I believe and am I afraid, to go through anymore pain, or that it would go away. Our fears the same, our fears the same, and I afraid of what to say, of what not to say, the same, just afraid. Hopefully I am praying, that God will open the doors that are meant to be and those doors that are not, be closed, certainly enough for me. I feel the same.
How am I going to know. If I cannot read.

You took it away, from me, to read.

Again it was gone, what am I suppose to think. Think the worst, that could come so easily...........for me...........can I see. Can I see, all that I would love, all that I would love.
All that I would love and you know it would be, me.

Am I going to this time, get to believe, it comes for me and never go away, that it comes for me, TO NEVER GO AWAY.
To not leave me the same, never no, more pain,
They never came in the first place,,,to leave me, I just dreamed, to see and dreamnt the pain away, by dreaming.
Oh only we might be afraid, that it comes both ways
Afraid,
It came and goes away.
Don't want to run away
Just how much should I say,
that I need
to see
and read.
The same.
Not to tease
To torment
To pain
No more
You need
Enough for me.
No more
For me
Do you want to show
Clearly,
What to think,
without you.
Without you I already have. I just want to see, and read and hear and feel it more. All that I need. All for ME. Enough for me. All of it, all to see. It come for me. To comfort me. I am weary, I am weary, I just want to see and read. Where does it come,
In clearer for me...........tell me. B. No tease

Alex,

I was just thinking about many different things, I felt I was wanting to just open up in writing some more to you. Many things were going through my mind. But almost too much and I am a bit tired to say much more right now. Lengthy wise.

But I lost a male friend, that I was close to, he was close to me, we were good friends. Same situation, when I am friend to someone, I am very loyal and trustworthy. I usually end up being friends for a long time. But I am very selective and I don't get close that easily to lot of people, but when I do, I am always there for them and very loyal to the friendship I keep. Anyway, he is another example, of a single man, that just never felt loved. His mother loved him, but it was not the same. He was
but 43 years old and Executive, handsome, he looked like John F. Kennedy the the president.

He had felt such a hopelessness about life, because of depression, because no love, but he had a problem with Drug and Alchohol abuse.I cared about him, but I wouldn't allow myself to fall in love with him. But that I would be his friend. He was the type of person that could not talk openly with people at all, very closed up. It was hard to pull things out of him. But I let him go at his own pace and I did not push it, I was just there for him , if he needed me, to talk to.

It was very intense, because as time went on and he got to know me, he trusted with all of his life, I tried to find out why, he had a problem with the abuse of alchohol, that eventually led to cocaine and pills. I got upset with him and it bothered me so much, what I was seeing of him going through. He worried me. But I knew I could not handle this alone, I knew that he needed to get into Recovery. He fought against it. I would get so upset, that when he showed up at my place in Vegas, that he would come in and start talking and all of sudden break down and cry, that he did not want to live anymore. I got upset, and called the Treatment Center to get a counselor on the line for him and I put him on the phone, and he talked a minute and then hung up on him.

Craig, loved me. But Craig knew that I was not thinking of him in that way. He knew I cared for him very much, but not to go across my boundaries with him, because I could not deal with his abusive problems, to get involved as lovers. But I was there for him. He and I got to become very close friends, he said I was such a good friend to him and that he loved me for it. When no one else, seemed to be as close for him.

He knew he could come and talk to me, like he did no other the same. Why me. He got so intimate about his life with me, so honest and so open of the stories he told me, and I gave him the sense of love unconditionally, just not in the lovers way. But it was love unconditionally. I have never gotten over Craig. I still have his picture I look at and I talk to at times. I also feel guilty that maybe if I loved him, in the other way, and I gave myself to him and loved him that way, that maybe he would not have died. But I could not deal with the other problems all alone with him. It was too much for me, to forbear by myself with him and he not seek help. I was just very tender towards him and he trusted me greatly. But he would hide his feelings sometimes and he would act like everything was ok, for me not to worry. Because I always worried about him. He would tell me that he did not want to live anymore and would break down and cry to me.................he would say no one loves me, no one loves me. At the time there was someone else in my life, sort of in my way. I was confused and just did not know how I felt. So I just couldn't get that close to Craig. I kept my distance. But I do not take lightly depression and I would never go take my life, no matter how it may seem. But he ended up doing that, and crushed me, broke me. hurt me so bad that he died.

I think if only he had the love that he needed in the way he needed, that I feel guilty, that maybe if I just gave into him, but I could not deal with his problems of abuse. I wanted someone straight, not party, party, party, I could not handle that. I stayed home alot, and wouldn't even go out. I was a homebody, Craig was a party animal. But he was drawn to me sense of quietness, home feeling, when he came to my place. He always loved my decorating, my taste, my style, it was always so cozy, and just a homy feeling, and he a typical bachelor, didn't care about anything around, he just simply didn't care about anything. But I believe that his abuse of alchohol and the pills, the cocaine, had to come from somewhere, deep, inside of him, for lack of love in his life, not connecting, but only he could with the substance abuse. However, I can not forget Craig..........in fact I was writing a screenplay, called VioletsRblue. There is alot into it. That I am even letting out. He is one character, that is a definite strong character, it involves two brothers. I can't even say, but there is a message I want to get out. All of these things one day, up on the screen as how I see it, unfold to me, every bit of it. I took his death very hard.

So I don't want anyone dying on me, because of depression and I don't want to die either. But it just goes to show, that it is not healthy for certain people to remain alone. In fact it can creat, such tremendous stress, and health problems remaining alone. I know that it is not good to do without. Not at all. Not at all. I have seen what it has done to people, not having love. It can destroy lives. Without meaning and a purpose. You just hold on, because things can turn around and miracles can happen. I do believe... I do believe that I just don't want to lose, anyone else, that I love, anymore. I did love Craig, but it was different. But I did love him. But I didn't even know it, until after he was gone, then all my feelings came out. I had grown a bit cold, sort of called numb and thats why...........just numb....so I didn't know how to feel, I would suppress, just stay numb...I don't want to be like that, its all from being hurt so much, thats why. But also putting yourself through all that torment, on those that do not want to committ and will not and care not, but just to play around and not be serious, you just let it go. It wasn't meant to be and thats why, because what is meant to be is going to come easy and flow, that it may seem its not for real. Its just not what we are accustomed to, we make it hard, we don't allow it, but somehow that has to change, to break that pattern. I do not want to hurt you, I already know that you have been through so much, I do not want to hurt you, so I know it may seem rough, the road ahead. The insecurity, the fears, the anxiety, just let it all out, I want to know, clearly some things and whatever it is that you want to tell me, I want to hear. Even if you just feel to ramble. I already have done some rambling. I am a bit tired. So I don't know what else to say. But I wanted to read that page, I would have copied it, had I known you would remove that. If you don't say anything, like I sent you 10 emails, to your 3 lines. Now just a couple of more. I have gone overboard and there needs to be balance, when there is not, I will start to back off, because I am not reading you too, enough as I need to be reading you. A lot too, if you can. I am the same way as you. If I give and give and give, I don't get and get and get, so what do I do, stop giving, so I can get. I want the same, so everything goes two ways. Whatever, however you think to write. I am just a little tired right now, from not sleeping at nights,and its taken its toll on me............I need to rest in Peace. But I don't want to die and I don't want you to be thinking of dying too. Because that is stress, stress levels building up because of how we feel and what we need and how long its been and what we have been through, its enough for both of us. There are no games, and no teasing. Thats nothing but torment, I agree, unless that is what you love, then you will never get healthy minded and cleared from all the depression and all this fear of committment, fear of abandonment, fear of getting close and then gone. I cannot forbear myself anymore pain, I feel just like you do, so I understand and I am more sensitive to it. So lets be for real here, we don't have forever to go on like this, so lets make some progress and see whats about and see if we get somewhere or not............to pick up some speed,,,,,,,,,,,cause I cannot just keep sending you emails, like this, unless I get the same, or I will fade until you are ready to start talking to me personally through writing and getting very open and just letting whatever it is out and if I may respond to each of your letters, if that is alright. Maybe its better, that way, you just let me know how much, you want to hear from me. Be very clear, so we can get on an even level here and get some things out clearly. I feel for now, not to say anymore, unless I hear from you and you have to tell you want me to email back as we go along.......because I can get like you, sensitive feel insecure, that maybe you may not want to hear from me, everytime you send an email. But everytime I have sent an email, I have wanted to hear from you. But I do not want to go on like this........just me and not you........Ok a break. Brenda

Why is it gone? I kept going back to find it and it was gone . Wondering why. It was strange to me that it disappeared like that. Strange that it was gone, vanished. I knew it wasn't there before you even told me, I knew. I thought it was so strange myself that it disappeared. I had a strange feeling about that. Then when you said one line, you were upset it was gone. I thought what happened here, this is strange, did you intentionally take it off or some thing happened? I had just mentioned that I would not want the world to be reading my journal. I didn't even think of what words I was saying, but those words came back to me with some other meaning and purpose strangely, reflecting back to me. It was not my journal, but it came back to me like it was. My journal disappeared, I would be upset too. All my heart , all my soul, all my writing, disappeared I could never bring that back as it flowed in those moments. Gone, gone with the wind, Gone.

Then I seemed to look for something, somewhere in your writing and it did not show to see at first any where. I though its gone, but somehow hes got to keep writing, he cannot stop to express, when he has so much in him, to not let this end, his writing for me to read. I loved his writing. I loved his writing. I just wanted to keep reading him, and then I scrolled down, and there it was. His writing, I could read more of him. I just want to read all of him. Thats ok with me. If all the writing is not directed to me, just so long as I can read what I love to be reading his expression of himself, I find drawing me in reading, like never before anyone, ever before like me.

Now I just have to say. As I was reading,
I am not lying or just saying these things, I am saying the very truth of me.
As I went reading, I felt so much ,that still, it was like me reading me. The me, not able to express what you did was me. Very strange to me. I swear, I got tears as I was reading what was written on your page. As I was reading, I swear I cannot believe at all what I am reading. Just the last night I swear I picked you up these past days, of my quietness, I swear you kept coming near me, you were near me, I could feel you near me and it gave me some peace, a sense of peace , in feeling the weakness I have been feeling, that I felt like I was dying and seriously, scared I was, just recently and I felt so much that death felt like it was coming near me and I was afraid. I said to God, when I felt that way, I had tears and I said God, just give me the strength to live, that I do not want to die, if I die, please God you cannot let me die, without loving the one for me, before I die, if I have to die, I will die, but don't let me die before I reach what can be for me, for a time that I live, to live, before I die. With that I had tears of reading, because that was me, just recently and I got emotional reading it and right now I am emotional for what I was feeling and reading. I don't know what is going on, maybe nothing at all, and I will eventually not make it. For all the depression I have been suffering for so long of this and the only thing in the world that means the most to me, the only thing in the world I want to express, and express how much, that is the life to breath into your soul, and without it, I will just keep loving you even in my soul, whether we are near or a part, endlessly forever into even eternity, but before I go, Iwant the world to know. That God must see me, and is alive and he is real, and it would be a miracle for me and with that Miracle I cannot help to feel I want to express to the world, that something very strange seem to find me and it looked impossible, when I lived in only that inner world alone for so long. I would never have any hope, if I never went out of my room, I would rather just leave my room and go to God if I must go on this way, because it is not living. No one knows how I feel or what I have been through, because of my intense feeling I read of you was me. No one ever I thought ever just like me. No one in this world.

Sorry I got myself so delirious, I guess I have sent things, I want you to be able to communicate directly through my email address, first I just would want to hear from you. I wanted to read that page again, because it was so much too, and sometimes, I want to go back to some things. Curiously, to have that page, may be through email........cause it felt like you were talking to me, it just seemed so much and disappeared again, listen I do not feel to want anymore insanity, talking here by myself, rambling on to you. Enough, is enough. It should be two communicating, directly, in thoughts and whatever. I want the door, to sort of open a little more, but here to read and see. I don't want you to be afraid of me. I like the same thing, just to here, as much you want, the same and need. But you have probably done by yourself for so long, its time two people, communicate. I am communicating one way right now and that is miserable. I have tendency to write like you a diary. But I am not wanting to write a diary here. I want to get on whatever level we can, to talk, through writing first and to talk,,,,but I don't know, unless you tell me should we just talk, or what, or write for a bit through some emails, first or what. I don't know. But I do know, I am weary to be writing by myself, because I want to hear from you, more, more. I feel almost maybe, if this is how it is, I would rather chill out to forget. I don't know what you are thinking. I know you are also going through that depression sort of thing and I know how you feel, because I fell into it too. Greatly and stress, greatly, weary to not have some one in bed with you every night, its not good at all....and I am like, not too long ago here. I went out with someone, and of course, I tried it, ok, going out and yet it comes to the point, yes of course I want to be in the bed, but if its not right for me, something is not right, that will only depress me more, because I don't want to spend the time anymore, with anyone but one, like me, who can also understand me too. Otherwise, all the others I could be out with even here, to me is so shallow. Why give my body, for what. Theres no deep connection there. Theres no desire. I want to connect body and soul. But for now, its just getting on that level of the soul realm, and I could just get away from this computer and not get back on it, just go play around some more, with men. I don't want to play around no more. I have to force myself to do it. But maybe it would relieve more stress from me, to be getting the massages myself and all the pampering I need just as well. Maybe we both need that so much at the same time, that neither of us have it in us to give, and just give and give, when we have already given so much of our heart and soul into things and not have it returned the same , so without you kind of feel sort weak to even give anymore. Thats the way I feel. But I gave, so much, to ones that were nothing like me, they were players, not into love stuff, or committing, now this is my first time, going in another direction, but it was the openess and honesty of you, I was so amazed by, even in your page, the last I read. I have your picture and that has been all that I had, and yes its all had, to see, to look at. Now, I am weary. Don't you know, you know how that is. I can understand you. Alot. I know what you have been through. Its been tough for you. But you keep going for the pain, you have to stop walking and living in the pain and give things a chance again, I don't want to hurt you, it is a risk............I loved the way you were, I have so far loved the way you think, but I don't love to feel you in pain either and I know you are and I can feel it and you probably can feel me too. Because we are alike. But you amaze me, with your honesty, how expressive you. The way you think, so far, I just want to hear more of you..........I loved the way you are so honest and so open, but you can't do that with everyone, You will get so hurt...............to be so open, the reason you get open like that is because you want the others to give what you give, thats why you give. I am like that, I give what I want the same...............so I do not care to play any games. Nor teasing me, the same. When you know I am being open as much as I can and reaching out for you a bit. But you are somewhere.......not hearing me I guess. Just being quiet..........so I am weary to continue on, if you don't make a change......I will just go away...........and get away from my computer and just get this off my mind. Your journal of writing, that I was takened by. How expressive you, and so open and so honest, oh my its so much like me, too...........but you are really more open, than I am..............ok, got to go. enough, whatever..............seems to be. Brenda

Hi, I just would like to say something here, when I first responded. I was not responding because of what you were looking for. I just felt to respond and I totally overlooked the age thing and all the other outer things. Because it was left open if not this perfect thing, on the outer things, friends. So thats the way I approached and also was just drawn to say some things to you. That I could see in your writing and maybe I felt I had somewhat some wisdom and understanding and just sensed alot through your writing. But even so I sent a picture it was only so that at least you had some idea of who was behind sending you an email. Now I am just like anyone else.

We judge things on the outer. I have very much been that way myself. Believe me I was told many years ago, that if I don't stop being so picky I am going to end up alone later in years. I was very much like that. It was hard not to be. So I could relate to the things that people have told you it just sounded so much like me. I am years ahead of you. Looking back through you.

I am being very honest with you, here two total strangers. You haven't said much through any writing directly to me, except I read your journal. So I have been responding off of some of the things writtened in that journal, like I am doing some writing only because of that I read. Not that I was in NYC and not dreaming to have babies either. So beyond those things. I could have stopped reading, but somewhere along the line you also did mentioned if not perfect for me, maybe too maybe open to friends. So it did not seem you were being so stuck in the mud, just being very open. I have not responded on anything of you now. Just off of that journal.

Like I said as I read that, lots of things were coming to my mind and I was almost like reflecting back and parts you reminded me of a male friend that I have still to this day back in New Jersey whose always calling me. With his problems about women. He is so sensitive and takes everything so personal. He is always trying to analyze peoples behavior, what they say, taking things the wrong way, almost like a certain move of a person and he feels hes being ignored, and extremely sensitive to that. He has a lot of anger towards women. But he is my good friend and he loves me dearly as his friend. He does not trust women. I just happen to be one of them, he tells me the only one he trust and he can be so open with me and not feel threatened by it.

But I also see how he jumps to assume too much about women and he feels the same way he can not tolerate games and he thinks all women are just out to play games. What it is he is extremely sensitive and can take things so easily, so personal and get so upset and angry by it, with women. So sensitive to not getting the attention he feels he needs, to be feeling secure within himself. Hes a bit fragile. Alot has to do with coming from his childhood too. I have more men friends from Las Vegas and in New Jersey always calling me. All about women. Because I have been very easy going with people ,very understanding and I do have a lot of knowledge and wisdom from over the years of hard learning. Painful learning. I am still learning and will forever be learning. I have not completely grown up, myself. Not at all. So I am more young at my age than most people my age. Not that I mean to be, but just am.
Because of the outer things in life, I judge too just like anyone else does. When it comes to age. I am not one of those women whoever was into young men. In fact I've had more younger men wanting me than I ever did them. I ended up with a couple, but not that I wanted, I just sort of fell into it, and stopped fighting it and of course I had relationships too. But I said after that, I do not want no more younger men and I meant that. Ok so now I am extremely sensitive myself when it comes to that.

In fact I just went through this oh a bout a week ago. I met this guy that 34 years old and he knew how old I was and he found me very attractive and said that I don't look my age and asked me if I would go out with him. I felt that I was on the spot and did not want to make him feel bad, but I said well your attractive but you are too young what I prefer. He said to me, well tell me why you think I am too young for you. I said you just are. I felt like I was getting into a little feeling defensive with him, his persistence as if he was trying to talk me into it. He said, why, why this age thing with you. So I threw it back at him, hopefully to get out of it and I said, ok you have a baby face, he said, well I have a baby face and thats why. He said, well if I look older, would you want to go out with me then. Still I am very stubborn and I usually stick to it. I was glad to get out of that. Being put on the spot.

So I am not one of these women, you may hear about wanting younger men, I already had them. I'm way beyond them. I'm standing in the Meadowlands in a concert with a fur coat on, to a Mega Death concert. Now that should tell you the age difference. I never wanted to go out with him in the first place. When we first met in New Jersey, he wanted me to go to New York with him and hang out. I told him, I am not going anywhere with you. He tried, over and over. I told you I was not into younger men. I even told him that, but he would not listen and give up and I don't know exactly what happened, I just think I gave in after awhile and we ended up together for 4 years. Living together. I learned alot from that. Totally. I think I felt sorry for him and he played on that. He loved me, but we were so opposites, totally. I'm classy type, with classical music and playing the piano, classical and hes into Mega Death. But I learned. He was handsome all the young girls wanted him. But I didn't even if I was younger. But I think it was somewhere along the road, I knew it was going to be forever. But it was an experience. I tried to get rid of him many times. But he would come back and would not let me go. Eventually, I took off to California. I said I will never go with someone so different than me. I ended up going around in circles, flying back and forth from one coast to the other. Sort of falling into playing around with the millionaire playboys, my age though. I learned alot. I lived in Las Vegas for a few years. All the glitz, parties. I really got tired of it. Never wore my fur coat out there, it was never cold enough. In Manhattan I did. It was so hot out in Vegas. But I learned alot of things and I am not the same as I was before.

I still do judge on the outward, vanity. Yep, I do. But I am also looking more into the inner things of people. But I cannot settle either, completely. I don't think I ever will. I guess there just has to be a balance. I don't think I am looking for anyone to be perfect anymore. I use to feel I had to be perfect myself. But now I don't feel that way and so I don't look for perfection in anyone. The older you get, it changes. But I am still very sensitive and extremely. Even though I am attractive, I never was egotistical. Growing up as a pretty girl, you would think would be so wonderful, not always. In fact girls were jealous, and people would think your a snob, and not approach you, sort of a lonely feeling I have known because. Yes lots of men, wanting you in bed. That I got tired of too. Because I am a very emotional person, and sex to me is not on the surface sort of thing. I use to think in my mind, that I would hold back, dreaming of this person, and think ok I will just save myself for whoever it was for me and I would do without when I should not be. But I was so stuck on that. I don't even know if it was good for me. So I am just opening myself up with this bit of writing, more like a friend feeling, than anything else. Yes we are two different age ranges, that does not mean we will be comfortable together because of that. It would not just be you alone, but me..........I'm the one, that is extremely sensitive about that and even so I have had my times. I prefer someone my age. But what I find is that men that are my age, sometimes are way too old for me. Also they surely look it. I don't like that. So maybe 5 years younger thats it, as far as I wanted to go. So they can understand you better and its not like this big age gap.

I have to say as I was reading you, you seemed alot older sounding to me. Then somewhere around your lines, You called yourself an old soul. All the while reading you, you just seemed older in reading you to me. Then you told on yourself again. However, I am not perfect...........I do not like the pressure of it either. Alot you said, sounded just like me and what I have felt and also what I have gone through. I also felt, I had some wisdom I thought about things, that maybe I felt to be a friend sort of thing towards a younger man struggling with the same things of emotions and desires and all that, I even went through. But I have learned so much. I still have lots to learn I have not grown up either. You said, people concentrate so much on the outer things instead of working on the inner things. Lots you said, I could understand and also agree with. But I am vain.......even so sometimes, but not as I was before. You sort of seem to humble. Maybe its the age thing, that does it. Well even then women think when you hit a certain age range, they start thinking ok, plastic surgery, lift the eye lids, you get to being so vain and afraid of aging. That you want to undo it.................but I have aged gracefully and I don't know how that happened. Most would take me for in my thirties, mid or upper. But not so. With no work done at all. Its the age and vanity thing, I believe alot of women go through and even men, for some outward boosts. Some men do it by leaving there wifes of years and running off with younger women, because of the mid crisis craziness fears. Then some of the younger ones sound older than some the same age do.......its a lot mentally. But its an inner and outer thing............I wasn't even shallow when I was up on billboards, modeling, I was not even egotistical then with an attitude. I don't know, I was more a compassionate type person, and sometimes being that way, soft, innocent, vulnerable and nieve...........I was, even as I aged. But however, I am rambling and that journal just was seemed like almost a mirror to me. But thats just a journal. I would never let the world read my journal. I as a little girl I always kept a diary going, and ever since I have always been in some into writing and I don't know why. I have also thought that if I could also myself move on from some things and get some things out of the way, that I would grow even more and I would continue to write in some form anyway. It almost seems like its part my destiny, I am not sure exactly what it is, I just have not yet reached it. Many times, because I have also a great imagination, that sometimes my imagination can run way ahead of me. I was told my writing should be for the movies......and I know things are there beneath the surface. That writing is going to be some purpose for it. That was meant to be for me. But I have to also go through a process before I can begin to actually write. There is alot stiriring inside and at times I feel somethings are going to come out and up on the screen.................even in my old age, some where along the line I am going to be writing............why I don't know, what it is yet.....but I can sense almost like miracles, I guess I always believed that God knew my heart and that God would allow me, to get some messages across........somehow someway. Brenda

Every one has always told me, I should have been

Somewhere there waiteth in this world of oursfor one lone soul another lonely
soul,each choosing each through all the weary hoursand meeting strangely at
one sudden goal.Then blend they, like green leaves with golden flowers,into
one beautiful and perfect whole; and lifes long nightis ended, and the way,
lies open onward to eternal day.Here I am........every thing you have just
expressed has been my everythought, emotion and desire. How is it that you
know me so well?Everything you wrote moved me.You mentioned your dislike for
dating, I can relate all to well. Tome,dating seems only agonizing and
confusing. However, like yourself, Itry to put things as an experience until
I have found the one I havebeen dreaming of...and I won't settle for less
than what I want, whyshould I???I have been out of a serious relationship for
five years and only feltthe desire to find "him" within the past year.I have
been alone long enough to know "him" as soon as I hear, see andfeel him...my
confidant, mentor and true love. My life is perfect andfull in every way.
Like yourself, I am over the moon with my careerandlife. I am a working
professional that has succeeded in all my goalsand dreams but feel a knawing
void and absence in my life. I amforeverthe single friend at all of my
friends parties. I am the friend thateveryone is trying to set up and can't
understand why I am stillsingle. As much as I miss being loved, adored,
touched and sharingeverything with someone, I refuse to be with a man for the
sake ofbeing with someone.About me? I am 33, 5'9", blonde, green eyes, school
teacher,whocurrently lives in Niagara, Canada but visits New York
frequently.(Actually I am here right now). I have a friend who met her
fianceewholives here in NYC so they turned me on to this form of
dating(?)/searching with every hope, for you. Claire moved to Manhattan 8
monthsago,I visit with them often. Their love has given me hope that this isa
different way of finding my soulmate.What are my interests? Travelling,
reading, music, painting drawing,visiting art galleries and museums often (my
undergraduate degree isFine Arts/Art History). What are my passions? Art
galleries,experienceing new countries and cultures, my niece, writing
andexpressing myself artisically.I teach full time (with the exception of the
summer of course, teachArt classes, coach my niece's baseball team. I am busy
and fulfilledinevery area of my life but romantically. I have incredibly
energy.I look forward to learning more about you, in the mean time I hope
Ihave kept the intrigue flowing.Traci



Good morning, Alex.

Forgive me, my thoughts are so tangled today. As I write this to you, my eyes are puffy and my nose is red. I've been reading your words again. I do so in small sections day by day; it's like being in art museum, you couldn't possibly see everything in one day and appreciate all of it properly. The more I read, the more I think of papers that I've written I'd love for you to see, or movies I should tell you about. Today it was a song, one of my favorites. I was playing one of my mix CDs while I was driving to return a DVD to Blockbuster (a DVD that I didn't actually get to watch, as I can't seem to get the machine connected correctly), and I was listening to Sting's "Mad About You." It would suit you, you should listen to it sometime.

I wrote something out to you two days ago, yet I didn't have the nerve to send it. I believe I'll hang onto it awhile longer. I was talking to my brother about all of this last night. I value his opinion because he's actually wise beyond his youth and he's one of the few genuinely kind people I know. When we were children, I used to dote on him and read to him and teach him things. He says he always appreciated that I treated him like a person, even when he was just a little boy. I always thought he would make such a fine adult. I'm so pleased that I was right. He told me that I often let my propensity toward over-thinking things get me into trouble. "Just trust your instincts," he said. "What if my instincts go both ways on this?," I asked. "Then that's not your instincts, that's you tripping yourself up," he replied. I always tease him that MAYBE he has one or two IQ points on me, but perhaps he really does have a higher emotional IQ than I do at times.

I'm anxious. I'm wondering. I want to ask you things. Even just what your day was like. But then again, maybe you don't feel like telling me. I'm sort of bottled up right now. at times I want to stop reading and I can't help myself. I'm sorry I know that this sounds crazy. I'm really a very grounded, rational person. I look at things from the outside first and approach with a plan. But now I have no plan and no idea what I'm doing! That's very scary for someone so used to being in control. I'm an extrovert by nature, but I find myself lately biting my lip and almost unable to express what's going on in my own head. Have you ever had that? That feeling of something you can't quite name, an itch you can't quite scratch?

Did you see the sunset last night? It was stunning from this side of the river. Hues of purple and pink and orange melting into each other. I felt like I should try to recreate it on paper with the pastels I have hiding in one of my desk drawers, but then I was afraid I would miss it. So I just stood there and enjoyed it. It was nice. I'm off to work the night shift shortly. I imagine that hours from now I'll still be lost in my own peculiar thoughts, rattling on in my mind about what makes sense and what doesn't. I'm aware that probably none of this diatribe makes sense to you; believe me, I can barely figure out what I'm trying to say myself. If you're reading this, then I guess I just went ahead and decided to click "send."

I hope your day was pleasant.

Kim


I was sitting in my car on Madison Avenue while I was working today, and it
just sort of hit me. In an instant I felt so terribly alone, and I couldn’t
stop crying. In fact, I rolled up the windows so that the passers-by wouldn’t
see me. I’d hate to have to explain that feeling to anyone. I guess I’m
telling you now because you seem like you might understand it. I eventually
composed myself, and drove home at the end of my shift.

I have perfected the art of being very honest with people in the telling of
all the facts, but in the same sense not really telling them anything at all.
What I am starting to realize of late, from my background with my family and
from my prior relationships is that maybe people offer us the love that they
are able to based on where they are in their own lives. A few months ago I
would have told you that I don’t believe that any woman has ever loved me; it’
s never felt that way to me. But maybe they just loved me as well as they
were able to, even if it wasn’t in the way that I needed. It doesn’t make it
less valuable, it just makes it different from my ideal.

I do want to be valued. I do want to feel safe enough to just be myself and
know that even when I’m being stubborn or crabby that it won’t be held
against me later. I dream of those moments, too. When I’m curled up on the
sofa in a little yellow house somewhere, my wife sound asleep with her head
in my lap. Or maybe we’re sitting on our porch swing; my feet are in her lap
and we’re laughing at our little ones squirting each other with the hose in
the front yard while the late afternoon sun begins to dip down behind the
trees. Our schedules are hectic, but we make time for each other. She doesn’t
mind that I’m I walk around with a spot of toothpaste on my nose to dry out a
blemish. We laugh a great deal. She knows everything about me and loves me
anyway. There’s a life I want to get to at some point somewhere out there,
and I haven’t figured out the right path to it yet. Last night at about 10:00
I looked up from the book I was reading; it was quiet except for the
Gershwin I was listening to, and for a moment I was thankful. I’m doing very
well with what I have now. But I’d be even better if I had someone to enjoy
these things with. I’m a little tired, a little sad, and pretty lonely.

I heard somewhere that you have to be brave to fall in love. What an
understatement. Love is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart. I left
myself fall in love Then I did something I’ve never done before. I made a
conscious decision to not be afraid. I gave myself over to it freely, and it
was the purest sort of romantic love I have ever felt for another person. I
felt it so strongly that I trusted it completely, especially when I thought
that she felt the same way, even if she was afraid to say it. She began to
distance himself from me. I understood that hanging onto him would have been
like pulling the wings off of a butterfly. To keep it for myself, I would
have had to damage the parts of it that had made me love it in the first
place; had I done that, the object of my affection would never have been as
beautiful or happy as she once was, and I couldn’t stand the thought of me
being the cause. That wouldn’t have been fair to her, and she wasn’t being
careful with my feelings anymore, which wasn’t fair to me.

I let her go; unbeknownst to her, by degrees. I kept the sheets on my bed for
as long as I was convinced that I could still smell her on them. I cried, she
went on with her life and I laid on the floor in my pajamas. I began grinding
my teeth constantly, and all but stopped eating. I lost hours and hours of
sleep, and couldn’t bring myself to even write anything- what I usually do
when I have anything on my mind. I was convinced that some night I would just
very quietly die of a broken heart. But when a relationship dies, it’s for a
reason; I think that self-aware people have some sort of built-in failsafe
for this to avoid running after the heart in the wrong direction. I was
exhausted from being miserable. Months later, with a lot of work and the
support of some very good friends, I finally feel like myself again, even if
I am a little worse for wear.

I started making changes; trying to alter the things about my life that maybe
weren’t working so well for me. This included dissolving a friendship that
had once been very important to me because I felt that she had abused our
relationship in the past months. I’m a firm believer that we teach people how
to treat us, and I couldn’t be true to myself maintaining what had turned
into an unhealthy part of my life. Keeping the hours that I do between work
and school, I tried personal online to possibly meet some nice women. I hate
casual dating, and this experience has not improved my outlook. Hope can be a
tragic thing when it goes unfulfilled. I just wasn’t meeting anyone that I
felt I could connect to. Chemistry" is so much more than that lust. I think
that it’s something you can have a little of when you first meet a person,
and that evolves out of how you interact with and relate to that person. I
think that you have chemistry with all of the people you choose to have in
your life, lovers and friends. It’s part of the reason that you were engaged
by that person enough to maintain a relationship with them. I usually know
fairly quickly after meeting a person if I’d like spending more time with
them later; I’ve made some good friends that way. Aside from the things we
had in common to talk about, something about the way they smiled or even just
how they "fit" into my personal space made me comfortable with them.

I think most women look at men as "a whole package," I meant it in a good
way, in the way that allows for some flexibility with some things because the
other qualities are so worthwhile. One day, I hope, some lucky woman will
look across the dinner table from me and be so very glad that I’m her
husband. I’m not as thick-skinned as people think. I get scared letting
someone in, but on occasion I do it anyway.

I guess that I wrote all of this thinking that it was at least a line to
someone suffering some of the same trials that I am on this subject. I know
what it’s like to look at the dating landscape and think, "is this all there
is?," or to want more because you know that you should hold out for something
very special. A friend once asked me why, working in a city with millions of
people, I couldn’t meet "someone." The answer is, I don’t know! None of them
are the right fit. My faith is waning in whether or not there is a "right
fit" out there for me. I miss very much calling someone just to say that I
was thinking of her, having my hand held, even just the company of a woman.
It melts my heart a little when I hear my male friends tell their wives that
they love them just before they hang up; I want that for myself. "Don’t
forget the dry cleaning, and I love you, sweetheart." I was in the Met last
month, my very favorite place in the city, seeing an exhibit of Medieval
tapestries. As I walked back to the main staircase, I caught sight of a
sculpture I had never seen before. Something about it… I was rapt, unable to
move because something about it pulled that ball of tension I carry around
with me right up to the surface. It was Rodin’s conception of Cupid
abandoning Psyche. I couldn’t imagine what would separate these two lovers,
clearly so miserable to be apart. The notion of "Love" leaving was suddenly
so tangible to me. I photographed it and began researching the story.
Forgoing the lengthy details, the moral of the tale is that when we have been
deprived of love, when we have to suffer, bleed, and die for it, it becomes
the dearest thing in the world to us, never to be taken for granted. Exactly
what it should be. Perhaps we don’t appreciate it enough, or in quite the
same light, without the struggle.

I
I would have addressed this to you directly, but I realized that I hadn't asked you your name, a rather rude oversight on my part. I wrote this yesterday and thought twice about sending it. Well, I guess I woke up this morning and still felt like sending it. You can click "delete," and I'll never be the wiser. Call it a need to connect socially, call it whatever; I just sat down and here's what came out. I re-sent the photo, this time under plain old Word; hope it came through this time so you can see me.
>
>I'm writing this because, well, I just felt compelled to sit down and commit my thoughts to words, and maybe to share them with you. I've spent some more time reading through your website, and there are things in it that strike such a chord with me. I was sitting in my car on Madison Avenue while I was working today, and it just sort of hit me. In an instant I felt so terribly alone, and I couldn't stop crying. In fact, I rolled up the windows so that the passers-by wouldn't see me. I'd hate to have to explain that feeling to anyone. I guess I'm telling you now because you seem like you might understand it. I eventually composed myself, and drove home at the end of my shift. I came in the door at home, very glad to see my dog. I think that's part of the reason I'm so attached to her- she's always so glad to see me. She is always here, by my side, and just happy to be with me.
>
>Your family sounds more than a little like mine, but my father was the one who doled out criticism, and my mother was the one who sort of reinforced it by always deferring to my father's opinions and wishes. I love my family very much, but I think that my relationship with my parents has probably been of a better quality since I moved out here (they still live in the Midwest). We have a dynamic that works for us now, and I have learned to accept that none of us is perfect. I know you don't need an opinion from me, a total stranger, but be careful about carrying around that feeling of being unloved; my father is 53 and has felt unloved his whole life, even with a kind, genteel woman as his wife and the two bright and affectionate children that my brother and I are, and he's taken it out on all of us in one way or another. I've watched him insulate himself with things, and more so with food. It's caught up with him. He developed diabetes and has been dying slowly of heart failure since a massive heart attack in 1999. It seems he's spent his whole life suffering over something he thought he didn't have, instead of realizing the value of what he did have. In fact, it was through that event that I realized I shouldn't have been married to the man that I was with. Life is so very short, and there I was, sitting on the couch in my lovely home, sobbing in front of man who didn't even have enough respect or affection for me to come over and hold my hand when I was upset about an ailing parent. It isn't a stretch for me to see myself doing things as my father did, learning to insulate myself to avoid really giving myself over to another person and risk being hurt again. I sensed your coolness when we spoke, and I know where it comes from. I'm sure you picked up on my guarded manner as well. It comes from the same place. I have perfected the art of being very honest with people in the telling of all the facts, but in the same sense not really telling them anything at all. What I am starting to realize of late, from my background with my family and from my prior relationships is that maybe people offer us the love that they are able to based on where they are in their own lives. A few months ago I would have told you that I don't believe that any man has ever loved me; it's never felt that way to me. But maybe they just loved me as well as they were able to, even if it wasn't in the way that I needed. It doesn't make it less valuable, it just makes it different from my ideal.
>
>You asked me before what I was looking for, but I didn't tell you all of it. I do want to be valued. I do want to feel safe enough to just be myself and know that even when I'm being stubborn or crabby that it won't be held against me later. I dream of those moments, too. When I'm curled up on the sofa in a little yellow house somewhere, my husband sound asleep with his head in my lap, a pile of our children's Halloween costumes that I've been sewing on the coffee table. Or maybe we're sitting on our porch swing; my feet are in his lap and we're laughing at our little ones squirting each other with the hose in the front yard while the late afternoon sun begins to dip down behind the trees. Our schedules are hectic, but we make time for each other. He doesn't mind that I'm a lousy cook or that I walk around with a spot of toothpaste on my nose to dry out a blemish. He painted my toenails for me when I was too pregnant to reach my own feet. We laugh a great deal. He knows everything about me and loves me anyway. There's a life I want to get to at some point somewhere out there, and I haven't figured out the right path to it yet. Last night at about 10:00 I looked up from the book I was reading; my dog and cat were sleeping next to each other on the floor, it was quiet except for the Gershwin I was listening to, and for a moment I was thankful. I'm doing very well with what I have now. But I'd be even better if I had someone to enjoy these things with. I'm a little tired, a little sad, and pretty lonely.
>
>I heard somewhere that you have to be brave to fall in love. What an understatement. Love is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart. When I started dating Bryan last year, I almost bolted twice in the beginning. He was the first person since I had been married that I felt like I could really care for. It terrified me; I always get my feelings hurt. He brought me suntan lotion one day, SPF 30. He knew I worked outside and didn't want my fair skin to burn in the bright June sun. I thought it was the sweetest gift anyone had ever given me, and I told him so. Then I did something I've never done before. I made a conscious decision to not be afraid. I gave myself over to it freely, and it was the purest sort of romantic love I have ever felt for another person. I felt it so strongly that I trusted it completely, especially when I thought that he felt the same way, even if he was afraid to say it. But eventually the blush wore off the rose, as they say, and he began to distance himself from me. He got angry when I would ask him to stay a little later on Sundays. Didn't I understand that he'd spent the whole weekend with me and wanted to do some things at home? I never did understand why they weren't things we could do together. Finally, a great deal of strife for both of us and one particularly heated exchange later, I understood that hanging onto him would have been like pulling the wings off of a butterfly. To keep it for myself, I would have had to damage the parts of it that had made me love it in the first place; had I done that, the object of my affection would never have been as beautiful or happy as he once was, and I couldn't stand the thought of me being the cause. That wouldn't have been fair to him, and he wasn't being careful with my feelings anymore, which wasn't fair to me.
>
>I let him go; unbeknownst to him, by degrees. I kept the sheets on my bed for as long as I was convinced that I could still smell him on them. I cried when the dog seemed to know it was Friday night and waited with her ball for him to come through the door and play. Of course, he never did. He went on with his life and I laid on the floor in my pajamas. I began grinding my teeth constantly, and all but stopped eating. I lost hours and hours of sleep, and couldn't bring myself to even write anything- what I usually do when I have anything on my mind. I was convinced that some night I would just very quietly die of a broken heart. But when a relationship dies, it's for a reason; I think that self-aware people have some sort of built-in failsafe for this to avoid running after the heart in the wrong direction. I was exhausted from being miserable. Months later, with a lot of work and the support of some very good friends, I finally feel like myself again, even if I am a little worse for wear.
>
>I started making changes; trying to alter the things about my life that maybe weren't working so well for me. This included dissolving a friendship that had once been very important to me because I felt that she had abused our relationship in the past months. I'm a firm believer that we teach people how to treat us, and I couldn't be true to myself maintaining what had turned into an unhealthy part of my life. Keeping the hours that I do between work and school, I tried Drip to possibly meet some nice men. I hate casual dating, and this experience has not improved my outlook. Hope can be a tragic thing when it goes unfulfilled. I just wasn't meeting anyone that I felt I could connect to. You've said that you think that "chemistry" is lust, but I think it's so much more than that. I think that it's something you can have a little of when you first meet a person, and that evolves out of how you interact with and relate to that person. I think that you have chemistry with all of the people you choose to have in your life, lovers and friends. It's part of the reason that you were engaged by that person enough to maintain a relationship with them. I usually know fairly quickly after meeting a person if I'd like spending more time with them later; I've made some good friends that way. Aside from the things we had in common to talk about, something about the way they smiled or even just how they "fit" into my personal space made me comfortable with them.
>
>Your instincts were possibly right, we may not be entirely suited to one and other romantically. While it seems like we want a lot of the same things, we may want them in different contexts. When I said that I think most women look at men as "a whole package," I meant it in a good way, in the way that allows for some flexibility with some things because the other qualities are so worthwhile. Sometimes I think that women are more flexible on this point than men are. I haven't seen the inside of a gym in a couple of years, but I still have a very pretty, slender feminine figure that I manage to keep by walking and watching what I eat. I don't think a really good meal is complete without the right wine. I spent 12 years in Catholic school; I believe in God, but I have no faith in the men who run the Church, so I haven't gone in years. I laugh at jokes, even the dirty ones. Some nights I like to go out. Some mornings I like to stay in bed late (every morning when there's snow on the ground). I don't have a great deal of free time during the semester, but I always make it for the people who are important to me. One day, I hope, some lucky man will look across the dinner table from me and be so very glad that I'm his wife. Sometimes it's enough to be in the same room with a person, even if you're both reading and not talking. I adore my friends, and I miss the ones that still live back in the Midwest, so we write. My little brother (who's now much taller than I am) and I are very close, and I'll always be there if he needs me. I'm given to rants sometimes when I'm angry, but they always run their course. I'm not as thick-skinned as people think. I get scared letting someone in, but on occasion I do it anyway. I'm a devoted friend and a considerate lover who would pull the moon and the stars down for her guy if she had to. And I do believe that giving someone your heart, as well as your body, is a gift, and should be treated with care.
>
>At the end of next month, I'm taking the first vacation I've ever taken on my own. As I told you, I don't think you should miss out on something just because you don't have someone to share it with. The shame of it is, I know that this could be a really romantic trip, but I wouldn't take someone along just to have a body there. I, too, am careful about who I share my space with. I'm going to take my dog and the oil paints & easel that I bought, and I'll spend a week just relaxing. We'll play fetch on the beach, paint and read, make margaritas, cook on the grill, and bathe in the sun. My father said, "maybe you'll meet some nice people.," which was his way of saying maybe his daughter, for whom he has no reasonable explanation for her solitary condition, would meet a nice man. That would be nice, I thought, though I've begun to feel that if I don't hope for it, I won't be disappointed.
>
>I guess that I wrote all of this thinking that it was at least a line to someone suffering some of the same trials that I am on this subject. I know what it's like to look at the dating landscape and think, "is this all there is?," or to want more because you know that you should hold out for something very special. A friend once asked me why, working in a city with millions of people, I couldn't meet "someone." The answer is, I don't know! None of them are the right fit. Unlike you, though, my faith is waning in whether or not there is a "right fit" out there for me. I miss very much calling someone just to say that I was thinking of him, having my hand held, even just the company of a man. It melts my heart a little when I hear my male friends tell their wives that they love them just before they hang up; I want that for myself. "Don't forget the dry cleaning, and I love you, sweetheart." I was in the Met last month, my very favorite place in the city, seeing an exhibit of Medieval tapestries. As I walked back to the main staircase, I caught sight of a sculpture I had never seen before. Something about it. I was rapt, unable to move because something about it pulled that ball of tension I carry around with me right up to the surface. It was Rodin's conception of Cupid abandoning Psyche. I couldn't imagine what would separate these two lovers, clearly so miserable to be apart. The notion of "Love" leaving was suddenly so tangible to me. I photographed it and began researching the story. Forgoing the lengthy details, the moral of the tale is that when we have been deprived of love, when we have to suffer, bleed, and die for it, it becomes the dearest thing in the world to us, never to be taken for granted. Exactly what it should be. Perhaps we don't appreciate it enough, or in quite the same light, without the struggle.
>
>I hope I haven't bothered you, and I apologize for running on so. I just thought it would be nice to talk to someone who understands what it's like to be alone and looking for that person you that can build a life with. Everyone has a story; you shared some of yours with me, and this is some of mine. I hate e-mails because you can't hear tone, and I dislike the phone because you can't see a person's eyes or face. I think that communication is an experience. So this was me, from one searching stranger to another, throwing out a lifeline. No, it's not just you. I'm looking for that "click" with just the right one, too. I suppose I imagined that even if we met and didn't fall in love instantly, we'd still have quite a lot to talk about. ;)
>
>If I don't hear from you again, thanks for listening. I wish you luck in your search and appreciation for the journey.
>
>K
>
>
>
><< Kim11.doc >>
>
>
>
Sensitivity is both a blessing and a curse. It makes one empathetic and kind.
I've also seen it make people petty and self absorbed, sensitive to what
their needs were, but no one else's. I'm sensitive myself. I've offered such
a great deal before. my affection, my devotion. only to be told it wasn't
enough. The moment it's demanded of me, I pull back. I give of myself freely,
but that's just it, I have to be able to do it in my own way. I like to do
things at my own pace, as I suppose most people do. I ease into things, warm
to them a little at a time. It makes me feel safe, and if I feel safe, then I
become open and expressive. Blossoming. I like myself very much when I get to
that point. We all face down our demons when we can feel strong and alive in
that sort of warmth. We bask in it and feel like we can take on the world.
But we still have to face those demons on our own, one way or another, in
every emotional climate. No one else can do it for us. Like everything, it's
a process. Though I will concede, life's trials are so much more endurable
with someone by your side to love you, support you, just be with you.

I could feel myself tense up ever so slightly reading your words about
missing human contact. When you're a person who likes to be touched, you do
feel that sense of withering when you go without it for too long. The
loneliness makes it so much worse; it almost becomes a weight you drag around
with you from day to day. I was at a friend's house a couple of weeks ago and
we were standing inside talking, out of earshot of the others outside on the
patio. I was upset; I was probably pouting, too. He reached over and gave my
chin just the slightest tug and told me it would be alright. Even if I didn't
think it would be alright, the action made me smile just the same, because it
was done with genuine affection by someone who knows me and cares about me.
That's always worth a great deal. Touch is so terribly important; it bonds us
to each other. I've read studies about infants up for adoption in other
countries and how they become colicky and inconsolable when they go for
periods of time without being touched or held. I always think, of course! Did
we need a study to tell us that it's scary enough to come into the world, let
alone without the benefit of any meaningful contact? None of us should go
without.

But I'm also well attuned to the other sort of contact you speak of. the kind
that clouds your head from the scent of warm skin and the very soft rhythm of
another heart beating very close to your own. Do you remember all of the
first times that all of the "someones" in your past touched you? I do. That
spark of electricity that runs up your spine, that moment when you're not
sure if you'll catch your breath. When you look over at that person and
suddenly become hungry for the sight, the sound, the touch, the taste of
them. When your skin warms all over and all you want to do is be close to
them, to touch every inch of them. Most of the time, when that moment
happened, it was in a public place- a movie theatre or a restaurant. I've
often wondered if the people around you can tell what you're thinking. If
they paid attention to the silent language we all speak, they would know.

Tonight I am staying in and watching old movies. The old black and whites are
some of my favorites- tonight was Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. Men who wear
hats and ladies who wear gloves. Controlled behavior layered over soulful
glances. The romance of it has always appealed to me. And now I'm going to
brush the tangles out of my hair and go to sleep. I'm very tired even though
I didn't do much today.

I changed the format again- I think my picture should come through this time.
Please let me know if it did. Otherwise, I am relegated to your imagination.
I am curious if I was what you imagined.

Goodnight, Alex.

Kim

I enjoy reading what you write. It has a poetic quality, especially in its honesty. It unnerves me just a bit, too. Not because I don't believe that most people have similar feelings, but because I wonder what it is that makes you so forthright about yours. I appreciate your openness.

Dreams are strange, the unfolding of things that we are trying to work out without really realizing it. Little encoded scripts for us to figure out later. Please don't be too sad about your dream; often times, death just means change, the exchange of one set of circumstances for another. I had a dream the other night, too. A stranger was taking me in his arms, pulling me very close to him, and we were dancing very slowly. I could feel the hardwood floor beneath my bare feet. It was warm, and I could hear the ocean. He asked me if I ever thought it could be so easy. It felt so nice, but I was so scared. A phone was ringing in the background; someone was calling for me. I didn't answer. My alarm went off instead. Do we make things too hard, being so careful? Or is it still a good idea until you have some certainty of things? I was once given very sound advice by someone I respect; she said that if you can live your live without being overly emotional, things would be much easier for you. She's quite right, I thought. But it's not in most people's nature to operate strictly off of intellect, and perhaps those people don't get quite as much out of life anyway. More answers that I do not have to questions that everyone asks. Opening yourself up is the single most frightening thing a person can do. When I studied acting years ago (my first two years in college), I had a teacher who was also one of the most talented performers I had ever seen. She said that honesty in your art was everything, and that you could never be truly brilliant without leaving yourself utterly exposed and naked on stage. If you were there, in that darkest place in your soul, the audience would instinctually follow; they couldn't help themselves. She was right. It makes me smile to remember those days, because I was so much more open then. I think we all are at that age, before the world sneaks in and teaches you how to be guarded and smug.

Sensitivity is both a blessing and a curse. It makes one empathetic and kind. I've also seen it make people petty and self absorbed, sensitive to what their needs were, but no one else's. I'm sensitive myself. I've offered such a great deal before. my affection, my devotion. only to be told it wasn't enough. The moment it's demanded of me, I pull back. I give of myself freely, but that's just it, I have to be able to do it in my own way. I like to do things at my own pace, as I suppose most people do. I ease into things, warm to them a little at a time. It makes me feel safe, and if I feel safe, then I become open and expressive. Blossoming. I like myself very much when I get to that point. We all face down our demons when we can feel strong and alive in that sort of warmth. We bask in it and feel like we can take on the world. But we still have to face those demons on our own, one way or another, in every emotional climate. No one else can do it for us. Like everything, it's a process. Though I will concede, life's trials are so much more endurable with someone by your side to love you, support you, just be with you.

I could feel myself tense up ever so slightly reading your words about missing human contact. When you're a person who likes to be touched, you do feel that sense of withering when you go without it for too long. The loneliness makes it so much worse; it almost becomes a weight you drag around with you from day to day. I was at a friend's house a couple of weeks ago and we were standing inside talking, out of earshot of the others outside on the patio. I was upset; I was probably pouting, too. He reached over and gave my chin just the slightest tug and told me it would be alright. Even if I didn't think it would be alright, the action made me smile just the same, because it was done with genuine affection by someone who knows me and cares about me. That's always worth a great deal. Touch is so terribly important; it bonds us to each other. I've read studies about infants up for adoption in other countries and how they become colicky and inconsolable when they go for periods of time without being touched or held. I always think, of course! Did we need a study to tell us that it's scary enough to come into the world, let alone without the benefit of any meaningful contact? None of us should go without.

But I'm also well attuned to the other sort of contact you speak of. the kind that clouds your head from the scent of warm skin and the very soft rhythm of another heart beating very close to your own. Do you remember all of the first times that all of the "someones" in your past touched you? I do. That spark of electricity that runs up your spine, that moment when you're not sure if you'll catch your breath. When you look over at that person and suddenly become hungry for the sight, the sound, the touch, the taste of them. When your skin warms all over and all you want to do is be close to them, to touch every inch of them. Most of the time, when that moment happened, it was in a public place- a movie theatre or a restaurant. I've often wondered if the people around you can tell what you're thinking. If they paid attention to the silent language we all speak, they would know.

Tonight I am staying in and watching old movies. The old black and whites are some of my favorites- tonight was Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. Men who wear hats and ladies who wear gloves. Controlled behavior layered over soulful glances. The romance of it has always appealed to me. And now I'm going to brush the tangles out of my hair and go to sleep. I'm very tired even though I didn't do much today.

I changed the format again- I think my picture should come through this time. Please let me know if it did. Otherwise, I am relegated to your imagination. I am curious if I was what you imagined.

Goodnight, Alex.

Kim