Simon, you know what I think of you and how much I admire you. What's more important is that you know yourself better than any of us here know you and YOU LOVE YOURSELF! You've got such a head start on life, it's incredible!

However, don't think your family is ever going to accept who and what you are... simply because you are as different from them as day is from night.

When I was growing up, my mom didn't accept who I was and was always critizing me to all of the extended family as well as in front of them. Now that I'm an old lady, my own kids don't accept me for who I am. My so-called husband doesn't accept big parts of who I am. He, too, has his own pre-conceived notions of who I am. I don't have a 3D friend that knows me inside and out and accepts who and what I am. They tolerate me.

But you know what? It's me I go to sleep with at night. It's me that has to live inside of me. It's me that has to listen to my conscience... NOT them!

Yeah, it hurts! Yeah, it's lonely sometimes! But in the end, I'm the one that will have to answer to God about what I did and didn't do... NOT them!

You're still very young. You've got your life ahead of you and like I said, you've got a wonderful start. You will find a group of your own kind of people that you'll have more in common than you do your blood family. Spread you wings, young man... and FLY! And fly you will! You won't ever find yourself at the bottom of a bottle, or smoking the last cigarette, or taking that last overdose of an illegal drug, or in some pit of depravity from where there is no escape.

A friend once told me, when I was complaining of being lonely "Don't be more lonely than is right for a small eagle to be." The operative word there is EAGLE. Think about it, Simon. I'm calling YOU and eagle! Soar, my friend! SOAR!