I've had to remember that I was there with Me; my wonderful, curious, loving, sweet, honest, brave, tenacious self doing her best against larger forces but winning through for me. I imagine it's horrible being the survivor of a shipwreck, a war or any "natual" phenomenons like that. I think some childhoods are that way too.

I have a picture of me where I'm standing shoulders hunched, arms straight like sticks against my sides, squinting into the sun and about 4 years old. It looks like I'm way across the front yard from my father who's probably the one taking the picture. I cringe when I look at it but am glad also that it's a picture, a picture of the past and I'm not like that now. Look at some pictures when you're thinking about the past -- it reminds me it's the past so I don't get quite so sucked in.

I think we do things "full circle" and I am working hard now to be "ready" when the next turn comes. I don't think we do all this therapy and work for nothing, just for cleaning up the past. There's real stuff to be learned and it was a "test" of our character but not the only one.