If you met yourself, would you want to be friends with yourself?
 
“Hell yeah!” = You’re doing the right thing. 
 
“Umm, I’m not sure” = You need to work on some things. 
 
“Hell no!” = Get your ass working now.

What my internal growing pains are telling me is that I don’t like keeping myself tucked inside.  It’s safe, but stifling.  I don’t like keeping my words unsaid.  I need to express them to feel and to be alive.  I’ve been silent because I’ve wanted to keep the peace.  But all I’ve done is create a war within myself.  I must be able to be me and approve of myself before anyone else can, or whether or not anyone else wants to.  It doesn’t matter.  What we fear most is being alone – but what does it matter if you can’t even be with yourself?  Who are you with then?  I will no longer be a shell seeking acceptance; I will exude my own acceptance from my core.  And those who are cool enough to enter my orbit will be let in.  I don’t need everyone.  I just need the right ones.  Say yes to that. 

​She Waited
 
She sat, waiting for her father to call her, but he never did
So she sat, waiting for a man to call her, but he never did
She was always confused
Never knowing which one of him she really wanted
A father, or a man who reminded her of him
So she waited and waited and waited
And asked God why he never came
 
 
She Left
 
She was tired of waiting
So she left
But she didn’t know where she was going
She was going to find someone who was not like him
But all she could find was his reflection
Is it my eyes? she asked herself
Or do I need new glasses?
It couldn’t possibly be that every man she encountered
Reminded her of the man she wanted to forget
Why does he keep following me? She wondered
Because I don’t even know what the son of a bitch looks like
She lied to herself
 
“Hello,” she said to a stranger.  “My name is Mary.  What’s yours?”
If she gave herself a new persona, maybe people wouldn’t know that she had been abandoned.  In this world, she created herself.  She was her own father and mother and trusted advisor.
“What’s your name?”  She asked the stranger again
Unbeknownst to her, this stranger was also looking for something he’d lost
“Richard,” he said.  Maybe Mary won’t know who I really am, he said to himself reassuringly.
“Wow, Richard,” she said.  “You look like someone I know.”
“So do you,” he said.
“What are you doing tonight?” he asked Mary.
“Nothing much, you?” she answered him back.
“Meet me at the Adirondacks.  There’s supposed to be a lot of fun happening around there,” he said.
“Ok!”  She loved that someone wanted to invite her somewhere.
So she got dressed up in a fancy black dress and put on her best heels.
At 8:00 p.m. she showed up and waited…but he never came.
“Richard?” she shouted into the street, but got nothing in response.
“Richard?” she shouted, this time ten times louder.  She wanted her voice to bring him in from wherever he was.  But Richard was stuck in a traffic jam. 
 
She left, just as he’d arrived.  She swore to herself that she’d never date, or go out with, or make friends with someone named Richard again.  I hate Richards, she said to herself.  They’re so much trouble!  And so untrustworthy.
 
 
She’s Still Looking
 
For what, she isn’t sure.  But she knows it won’t be a man named Richard, or one who reminds her of her father.