Thanks Kiya.. i discovered something kind of unfortunate - my very best writing happens when i am in the deepest pit. When i feel ok i can't seem to draw on the emotion so much. Dunno why. i have some stuff that i look at now and wonder if i really wrote it. Maybe someday i can write stuff when things aren't so bad.

Sunny you and your T are very right i think. i wish i could stop projecting that image. i try sometimes.. then there is a conflict between what my "old" friends know of me and what i am trying to become... sometimes they laugh. They dont mean to be hurtful, but to them i think it's like i am faking it.. being someone i'm not, which is ironic. i am nowhere near it either... and nowhere near telling my old friends that this is who i really am.

i started doing this back when i was a young teen. i became my own parent in many ways. T has agreed and gone further with that idea. i watched other people and tried to emulate what i saw... which means i learned to act and not *be.* What i told T, as an example was that i learned how to act confident but not be confident. Make sense?

the projection in mnay ways is all i have... i often feel it's all that i am. That inside person, the real me, is incomplete and very fragile. She never got to get "put together." i know a lot of people are afraid to show their true selves... and that is certainly true, but even more is that i dont even know who my true self is... i dont know that there is a "whole" person in here. i am so tangled up in the projection. Some of it is me, some is not... which is which is a very good question. (one that is costing me $140hr )

right now i have found that i seem to be cultivating a love/hate audience. Some people i "test" with my new way of doing things think i'm sweet... and then there are people who have seen me lash out and sweet isn't a word they might choose. i hate it when that happens. i HAVE noticed that this year, since being on my own more, there has been a better response from people because i have been more engaging and the projection is even more of a happy one.

i sometimes find really positive people that i would love to form relationships with but i dont know how. All i know is the projection way... and even then i know how to start a friendship... but then i fall flat. i have zero idea on how to follow through. i mean, my friends can count on me, the old friends even know that... but as far as making a healthy relationship and making it grow? no idea. seriously.

*sigh... your repsonses are always so good sunny.. thnz. Can you move over and share that "3" with me?