A new perspective, or a bit of knowledge I didn't have before.

Two days ago, I called my Aunt Linda, a constant source of wisdom and support, to tell her that I had just written the first chapter of my first novel. I was bursting, inspired, energized, and she knew it. She listened and she understood the gravity of what I was telling her, and she was there, exactly what/who I needed. Every friend I have told since then, expecting the same level of pure love and support, has not understood, or has let their own sense of disappointment in their achievements get in the way of their ability to be happy for me. It's too bad.

What does this mean in the scope of my lifetime and my world? Is this something really worth getting upset over? What is the essential cause and effect of this?

I buy flowers on my way home and take the time to arrange them. I cook myself healthy meals and don't scrimp on ambience when I set the table for one. I keep my bedroom clean and bright and peaceful. I remind myself to inspire myself.

When I learned that my father decided, at just 24 years old, to raise me as his own although I wasn't his biological daughter. I was 21 when I found that out and it made all the years of fighting and silent treatments seem like sea foam, insignificant turbulence in a vast and profound sea of love. He chose me, and accepted me, and has never once flinched.

All the time! With two demanding jobs plus a full time school load, I need it. I try to forget myself and be silly as often as I can, even if it's just in my own mind while I'm on the subway to work or school. This past weekend I was lucky enough to have a day off and some of my friends and I laid in the park and took silly pictures and acted like kids, alienating ourselves from the hipsters around us. We didn't mind, and it felt great!

Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his sort-of-memoir A Man Without A Country about one of his beloved uncles, who always made a point to appreciate the niceness of small moments. He would pause in the middle of otherwise routine or unspectacular events and say  "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." I subscribe to this idea, and strive to always take in the beauty in seemingly banal vignettes. I try to rub off on others around me subtly, too, which is more difficult; people don't like to feel condescended to, so there is a thin line between encouraging optimism and being cloyed.

This is a hard question! I've never been shy of risks except when it comes to facing rejection or judgment. I'm not afraid to fail on my own, but in front of others, scary. I'm learning to 'put myself out there' in terms of my emotions and opinions, and to be able to back myself up when it comes to it. It's a good feeling to trust yourself and have confidence that even if everyone doesn't agree with you, at least you will have their respect for having asserted yourself.

I remember back in high school one teacher gave us the Myers-Briggs personality test, and one of my results said that I was the type of person who would rather skip class than go and face the teacher without homework. The worst way to hurt me is to tell me that I disappointed you. Well, you know what? I'm going to. I'm going to disappoint people, including myself. I've done it over and over. But the true measure of who I am is what I do after having disappointed. If I buckle and refuse to try again, that is the real disappoinment. Soldiering on is the only way to redeem yourself not only in the eyes of others, but in your own heart.

I need to learn to speak more loudly.

Like many people, I find security from my family. I chose some really fantastic people as my parents and brother when I came into this life, and I've strived to honor them and keep us all together as one unit throughout it. We couldn't be more different from each other or more alike. Together, the four of us make a perfectly balanced team, each of us bringing a talent and insight that no other has. My father is not my biological father, but he chose to raise me from a young age. This makes me feel more loved and special than anyone can imagine. My mother learned from a channeler when I was just a baby that she and I chose each other because we are to teach each other many things in this life. It's true, I am constantly learning from her mistakes and her successes, and she from mine. My brother, a baby soul, loves us all unconditionally and would blindly lay himself across train tracks for any one of us if he needed to (which, of course, he would never need to), and despite his stubborn exterior, has a quite receptive and patient soul. I would be lost and vulnerable without any one of them, and although I don't see them but every couple of months, they are in my heart and at my shoulder through every moment and memory I create.

Also, being a Pisces and having grown up on Cape Cod, I feel safest and most peaceful when I am near water in any form.

I've been learning that the large-scale insignificance of this one self in this one life is an integral element of the small-scale significance of all selves in all of life. I am just me, but me is part of we, and we cannot live without me.