Opening

A lot of readers have come up to me since the book went live.  It's a surreal experience but definitely not an unwelcome one.  There are the ones who tell me "how shocking, how terrible, I didn't know."  I reassure them that it's okay, shit happened and it sucked but this is now, not then, and in the now, I'm happy.  There are the folks who want to know why I'm happy now, why I would ever be happy, given such a past.  Their looks are semi-hostile, as if they can find out where I'm lying, where the chink in the armor is, and peer into that black misery that used to be all of me.  It's still there.  It always will be and yes, it's because of wounded memories.  But it's dormant.  I do my self love exercises every day, I recognize the fact that I have a basketcase of emotional wreckage inside of me, and I'm okay with it.  I don't rage at it anymore, or scream for it to disappear.  It's a part of me, and I don't heap any more bruises on top of it than I can help.  I'm done with self hatred.  It still lurks, looking for an opening, and sometimes it gets me.  But I don't welcome it anymore.  I don't think I deserve being cruel to Beck anymore.  That's a big difference.

And then there are my brothers and sisters of circumstance.  They've begun to speak up as well.  People I know and strangers I've never met have done me the honor of sharing their stories.  Sometimes it's little tidbits and sometimes it's verbal marathons of horror.  I welcome it all.  I want to help.  That's the whole purpose of Freak: to help the broken and miserable.  I want to show how beautiful life can be, even to class act fuckups like us.  So many mistakes, so many stupid decisions, so many ridiculous and embarrassing and humiliating life choices.  A long pattern of self abuse as we stay in terrible relationships, stick it out, brag about our false loyalty to monsters who abuse us, then wonder why we can't look ourselves in the mirror.  I did all of that.  I got past all of that.  I'm still getting past it and I always will.  It will always chase me.  And you know what?  Fuck it.  Let it.  I'm quicker than I was.

Secrets kill.  Daytop, my son's rehab, taught me that.  Secrets kill.  We keep our mouths shut about our awful little secrets, hiding our dirty little past behind humor or aloofness, but then it festers and emotional gangrene sets in.  That shit's no different than the flesh-eating kind.  They both have teeth and they both consume us.  I've met women who were raped from diaper age, men who had the same, girls who had plunger handles shoved up them.  I've met twenty-year-old girls who've had multiple abortions because their father got them pregnant.  I've listened to raging adolescent boys who want nothing more than to kill something.  Anything.  Anyone.  Consumed human beings who think there's nothing left but to be digested in a gastric hell.  I know.  I was one of them.  I get it.

But as bad as things are, and they often are very, very bad, that doesn't have to be the future.  Self love won't happen overnight; at least it didn't with me.  I spent six months telling myself I loved me with a sneer.  I found the idea repugnant, ridiculous, ineffective and nauseating.  The self-hatred was so overwhelming, I didn't even believe in  what I was trying to do.  But at the end of that first six months, I was brushing my teeth in the mirror, lips pulled back and foaming at the mouth, when I froze, wide-eyed, at a stunning realization.  I was looking at myself in the mirror.  I wasn't avoiding one half of my face, as I'd done for years.  I'd been unable to look at the whole countenance because of disgust and humiliation over all I'd done to myself.  All my failures, all my weaknesses.  But I was looking at my whole face without a thought, mechanically.  I hadn't dreaded the idea of my reflection or planned how to avoid it.  I had just been scrubbing my groddy garlic bread teeth.  That's all.  A nothing.  A monumental nothing.  It was the first time in years I'd looked at Rebecca O'Donnell's entire face and not started crying at the horror of it.  I hadn't even noticed.  I'd simply gone to brush my teeth.

That was the beginning.  That tiny thing, that silly foam-drippy grin that spread across my face; even the self-depreciating sarcasm I flailed myself with couldn't stop me from realizing how important this really was.  I.  Looked. At. Myself.  The world had changed.  So, my beloved friends and fellow fuckups, don't ever despair.  Keep going, keep telling yourself that you love your body, your mind, your spirit, and one day, far in the future, you'll grin like a foaming rabid dog too.  A silly, giddy miracle.  Take care, be diligent in the search for yourselves, and never stop believing.  Happiness is there.  You can find it.  I believe in you.  Make sure to believe in you too.

Love, R   

Shifting Sands

Yesterday I visited friends I hadn't seen for a month.  It was at my old job.  I'd gone in to say hi and shoot the shit for awhile. Many of them have already ordered Freak online and it was interesting to listen to the parts that struck home for them all.  Each one had a different story from the memoir that resonated on a personal level.  Everything from "Your mom's top five list.  God, I couldn't believe that one" to "Rebecca, you should have eaten that fucking donut.  The way you described it...you just...you just should have eaten that fucking donut."  As I stood there, I felt a hand on my back.  It was an affectionate touch but one I didn't immediately recognize.  When I turned around, there was Maureen, smiling very tenderly at me.  "Hi, Becca Bex," she said with a grin.  I grinned back, somewhat confused because Maureen isn't a touchy feely person at all.  She had never touched me when I'd worked there before and never once had she ever called me Becca Bex.  We drifted over to a corner for some privacy.  I could tell she wanted to talk but was having a hard time getting it out.  "I started reading your book," she told me.  "I just have to...kudos to you, Rebecca.  I gotta say, kudos to you.  I don't know how you had the balls to just write it all like that.  You just say it.  You just fucking say it."  She looked down and I knew.  I knew what was coming.

"I lived a life like that.  I grew up like that too." She looked up, eyes awash, then quickly down again.  "I don't think I could ever just talk about it like you do."

"Well don't sweat that, Maureen.  I was a chickenshit for about a decade before I finally decided to publish it. Let me ask you something.  Did it help you at all?  Do you think this book will help people?"

"Oh yeah," she said. "Oh, fuck yeah."

"Don't believe it if anybody told you you're a piece of shit, Maureen.  It's a lie, it's bullshit.  That's all it was and is.  Believable shit.  It's not true."

Tonight I went over to a friend's house who'd lent a copy of Freak to a neighbor.  The woman was going through a hard time emotionally.  She too came from an abused home, and was out on her own by the time she was sixteen.  The woman came over to meet me and we talked for hours.  I told her what a fucked up basketcase I'd been and she told me what a fucked up basketcase she was right now.  She too was startled by the way the story was told.  Raw and bleeding. She too told me it helped her, and said she was going to try some of the self-love exercises I talk about in the book.

Oh.  My.  God.  Can you imagine?  Me, the biggest fuckup imaginable, with more bad decisions and stupid ass theories under my belt than most people dream of, being given such a gift.  Here it was, my dream, my fervent wish, being handed to me on a plate.  Proof.  Proof that this sorry little story might, just might be of use to my fellow brothers and sisters of circumstance.  Light a mental candle for that miracle, my friends. I hope it spreads, I hope the sands shift and the tide comes in and my clumsy words can help wash away some of the angst and self hatred so many hold in their hearts.  I know that pain and I don't want anybody to hold it anymore.  I want you all to let it go, to let the tide take it away, wash your wounded hearts clean, leaving them fresh and new.  A perpetually wounded heart is a sad and desperate burden, and instinct works bass ackwards when it comes to that kind of emotional damage.  Instead of letting go of it, we cling harder, clutch it to our chests like a beloved child.  Just think of the stupidity of holding onto a chunk of hot lava.  Same principle.  Let it go. 

Thank you all for everything.  Let's hope it keeps going.  This very early stage is very encouraging.  I want so badly to help people.  It's a matchless honor.  Take care to love yourselves and do a bit of healing.

Love, R 

Wiener Hair

I had wiener hair night before last.

I was going to be interviewed for a short film to go on YouTube, advertising Freak, and had decided to go for a sort of Rita Hayworth-head-of-Gilda hair look.  So I scrubbed my skull, moussed and brushed, then began the long process of rolling minute amounts of hair into sponge rollers, which I would then sleep in.  When I was at long last finished, I started laughing at my reflection in the mirror.  I stood there in a dumpy robe, grey rollers all over my head like little Vienna sausages, no makeup and a couple days of poor sleep bagging under my eyes.  I stuck a pen in my mouth, let it droop like a soggy cigarette, struck a pose and said, "What's the mattah?" in my best Daisy Duck impersonation.  There was a hilarious Disney cartoon way back when, where Donald Duck marries the fetching Daisy only to witness her curler ed and chain-smoking morning after persona. At that moment, I was the embodiment of a cartoon duck, complete with fuzzy robe.  It was enchanting.

The interview seemed to go well although I was a bit self conscious.  I want so much for the book to do well, to get out there, to help as many as possible.  Today was amazing.  We had a server meeting at an ungodly hour this morning, where we all had to drag our night owl selves in at the crack of dawn to discuss and taste test the new menu.  One of my co-workers suggested I bring copies of Freak to the meeting and sell them to the other wait staff.  I thought that was a good idea, so packed a big satchel and hauled it in.  To my amazement, I sold every single copy I'd brought.  It was astonishing.  What great people I work with, to have such care of me that they'd want to buy my book.  I'm so damn lucky.  Remnants of my wiener hair still drifted in my shaggy ponytail, and several people touched it with a smile.  They all wanted signatures, and I drew comics in a few of them.  It as fun.  When I got home, my roomie said she'd had a deja vu moment the day before, seeing me sitting on the couch in the sunshine, being interviewed.  She said, "It's already begun.  It has.  It's already begun."  Wish me luck that I'll be able to go the whole way and do what needs to be done to make my memoir a success.  I feel almost a moral obligation to do that.  Thanks for reading my blog and caring enough about my rambles to keep me moving ahead.  It's true, too.  This has already begun.

Love, R

Red Robin

I just saw the news story about the little eight-year-old boy who lost his mom and found comfort in a Red Robin restaurant.  Have you heard this tale?  On the day his mother passed away, his dad told him he could pick whatever restaurant he wanted to eat at.  His mom's name was Robin so he chose Red Robin.  He ordered Mac & Cheese and when it arrived, broke down and started crying at the table.  His waiter asked if there was anything he could do and the boy told him what happened.  With his tip money, the waiter sent some of his co-workers over to Target to buy a card and a photo album.  The boy had some pictures of his mom with him.  The entire staff signed the card and they gave it and the album to the kid.  "Even though your mom isn't here, you have the pictures and I want you to have a place to keep them forever."  In the interview, the little boy said he went into that restaurant with his heart broken and felt like it'd been put back together again.

How beautiful is that?

This is the kind of story that happens every day.  Every single day, thousands of little sacred moments like that occur, from a kind word to a stranger to a priceless gift that cost pennies.  I find myself overwhelmed by crap on the news sometimes and have to remember that simple fact.  Good and sacred moments like that happen every day.  I think human beings are hardwired to remember the bad things first.  Maybe a mammalian survival instinct, who knows?  Our brains and hearts get stuffed full of ghastly scumballs stabbing each other in the backs, of pissy gripers taking a bite out of our confidence, of us joining in and flaying ourselves for being not good enough, not smart enough, not anything enough.  But we all have that glow inside.  We all have the ability to be unexpected angels, like that waiter.  He had no idea he was going to change a life when he went into work.  He probably walked in the door quietly resigned to slinging hamburgers for six to ten hours and miserably counting the paltry handful of money at the end of the shift.  I think we're all given the opportunity to be an angel on a fairly regular basis, but we're so overwhelmed by our own problems we often don't see the chance we just passed up.  But sometimes we do.  Sometimes Fate bangs us on the head and says, "Look.  Look what you can do, at no cost to yourself.  You can save a child.  You can mend a bit of heartache.  You can soothe a shattered soul."  And we do it.  Amazing to look at myself, a class act fuckup for so many decades of my life, to look back and think, "Good GOD.  I was an angel to somebody.  More than once."

And how beautiful is that too?

Take care, fellow angels.  Keep a look out for emotional ice burgs and do a bit of rescue, both to yourselves and others.  Best self hatred treatment in the world, to do something worthy.  Big or small, that is always a sacred thing.  Happy flying.

Love, R

Acid and Honey

Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me.

I used to hear that old nursery rhyme on the playground all the time.  I chanted it myself whenever something mean was shouted or jeered in my direction.  But as the years progress, I have come to the conclusion that this particular quip is bullshit.  Yeah, sticks and stones can break our bones but words go straight for the marrow.  Words can break the spirit.

I hear it all the time: at work, on TV and movies, in the lyrics of songs.  She was mean, he was cruel, mommy did this and daddy did that.  People talk about wounds received that are bloodless but still gaping, bruises and blows delivered by a clever and thoughtless tongue.  Out of sight, out of mind.  That one is unfortunately very often true.  We walk by savagely wounded people every day and pay them no more attention than an occasional polite nod. 

I'm not blaming normal folk.  The damaged are very good at hiding their pain.  They wear the smooth mask of a nonentity, desperate to stay the same as always, to be invisible.  As a kid, I used to hide behind trees whenever cars drove by so they wouldn't see me.  As a married adult, I stopped wearing makeup or nice clothes to be invisible.  If I was attractive, I was noticed and there was hell to pay.  What I didn't understand at the time was that there was always hell to pay.  My ex was never satisfied, never pleased by anything I did when it came to my personal appearance.  That was one of the manipulations to keep me with him.  I just didn't see it at the time.  I didn't value myself enough to be a champion to me, to Beck.  I threw me to the wolves and dove right in to join in all the rending and tearing.  That's the scary thing about insecurity.  The insecure are crueler to themselves than anybody on the outside.  If you're insecure enough, you stay with the wife-beater or the demanding acid-tongued spouse, you offer yourself up as a sacrifice in a desperate attempt to just get them to be happy for one moment, one pause in the constant barrage of attacks.  That's what we live for, those brief and shining moments of abatement.  Not kindness; abatement.  Lack of torture.  That becomes our kindness.  That becomes our Christmas and New Year and Happy Birthdays.  And that's no place for anyone to live.  That is a hell of our own making and we're way too blind to see it clearly because our eyes are gummed full of shit. 

I was like that for years.  For most of my existence, that's how I lived; waiting for the glorious, marvelous moments of abatement.  They had become beautiful to me.  I hoarded them deep inside like a hidden treasure.  When I finally left my husband after fourteen years, I took all his letters and cards, lovingly preserved, and re-read them with new eyes.  Virtually every one of them was a beautifully written apology for something.  My husband was highly intelligent and well read; he knew how to pen a good love note.  But they were all apologies for something he had done to me or the kids.  Fourteen years of letters and cards. 

An insecure person will forgive anybody pretty much anything if the apology is done correctly, or we think our sin is great enough.  We're emotional slaves.  I've seen a woman weep over the sorrow in her husband's expression on seeing her battered face after beating her in a drunken rant.  She wished she'd put some makeup on so he wouldn't have to feel so badly.  I've listened to a brilliant surgeon make excuses for his wife's savagely biting his wrist and clawing at the tendons so he couldn't perform surgery anymore.  She'd been cheating on him for years and when he fell in love and wanted a divorce, she wanted to make sure he couldn't support his "new piece of ass."  He refused to press charges, saying he understood her pain.  I've listened to child after child flay themselves for not being quieter, faster or smarter; berating their tiny selves with a burden they never should have picked up in the first place.  The guilt burden, the self-hatred dogma that's tougher than heroin to break away from.  All vicious, all cruel, all self delivered. 

Words can be acid or honey.  They can eat away at us until we're full of holes or they can be clover-scented sweetness, nourishing and golden.  When I first began this droning monotony of self love talk, I rolled my eyes over the whole repulsive nonsense of it.  I told myself that I was kind, good, a loving person, a wonderful woman.  I didn't believe a word of it.  Why should I?  I'd been abusing myself for years, why should I suddenly believe this bullshit?  But I kept at it.  Every night, every day, I made sure to say something kind to the mirror, to whisper it in the dark as I fell asleep, to stare at artwork I'd done and praise it instead of agonizing over its flaws.  I felt ridiculous.  I knew I was stupid.  But I kept at it.  As the months passed, I began to notice small changes in my thinking.  I felt a sort of hunger for those kind words, even if it was only dumb ass me saying them.  They were golden and tasty and I had been starved for so very long.  Then I went through the jeering phase, making fun of myself for being such a loser that the only person praising me was me.  Still, I kept at it.  Dog with a bone.  I fed the soul that had been so hungry all this time; a belly growl I'd never recognized.  Never understood.  It was alien territory, this self-love thing, scary and unfamiliar and a little humiliating to someone as fucked up as I'd been.  But I kept at it.  That's the secret.  Winston Churchill had it right.  Never, never, never quit.  So there we go, my brothers and sisters of circumstance.  Don't ever give up and don't ever quit on yourselves.  I am amazed how fond I am of good ole' Beck nowadays.  To my astonishment, I find that I'm a pretty good person, even after such a ridiculous and miserable life.  What a marvelous, wondrous thing to discover.  The uncharted territory of myself.  I've hit both valley and mountain now, highs and lows, shadow and light and I'm still travelling.  I'll be on this road a while yet.  And believe me, it's surprisingly worthwhile.  So are you all.  Believe it and never, never, never quit.

Love, R

Reminisce

Today was a little bit surreal.  I was wandering around work, hefting giant trays and handing out platters of food, all the while thinking about the book in the back kitchen.  The hardback copy of my memoir Freak had come in the mail the day before, and in my excitement I dragged it in to show all my pals at the restaurant.  I'd re-read it that night, but this time it was different.  It wasn't a manuscript, it was a bound book.  I was surprised at what a difference that made.  I knew most of the words by heart but still...it was different.  There was something thrilling about it, holding my own book in my own hands and reading about some ghastly thing from the past.  It was as if the words weren't about me anymore; they were about someone I'd never met, but heard about. 

Walked into work layered against the biting cold, thinking about the book.  What to do with it.  Would it do what I wanted and help people?  How to get it seen, how to get it into the hands of the world.  So many screwed up and broken brothers and sisters out there, so many that might be touched, might think a little higher of themselves if they read about my dumb ass mistakes.  If they nodded and thought, "Yeah, I remember that feeling.  I know just what she's talking about."  I want them to take comfort from this strange little memoir.  I want them to know they're not alone, that I'm not one of those spunky survivors, that I'm a survivor who was stupid, stupid, stupid and absolutely fucked up for decades and I STILL found a way out of the pit.  You don't have to be super human or larger than life or tough as nails to escape yourself, the self that's so hated.  You can do it quietly.  Slowly.  If you just keep at it, self-love will sneak up on you like springtime after an ice storm winter.  First you'll only see a few dips in the snow.  Then crocuses will peek out of the frozen ground, and tiny snowdrops.  Next thing you know, you're in a garden you didn't even realize you were planting.  A secret garden all your own, that YOU made, that you cultivated and grew.  Hard work, digging through the shit of the past and tilling it into fertile soil for new growth.  But, oh, so worth it.  I was sweating bullets today, hoping so much to do some good with my story, to let a bit of gruesome reminisce shine some light on fellow dumb asses.  Because it's okay to be a dumb ass, or a victim, or an addict who's crawling across jagged glass every day to try and change.  Trying is everything as long as you keep at it.  There's something cleansing about finally letting go of all those years of self hatred and bitter regret.  It literally feels like stepping under the shower and letting the clean water wash away greasy, clinging shit that's been coating every inch of you forever. I had no idea of the amount of filth I'd been slorped up with for pretty much my entire life.  Looking back, I can understand why I made the very bad choices I did, why I repeated the pattern of self-abusive relationships and self-destructive decisions.  When you look like shit, feel like shit and smell like shit, you begin to think that's all you are.  But we're people under all the sewage.  We're beautiful children and gracious adults.  One just has to scrape it all off to see that.  So keep digging, my brothers and sisters of circumstance.  Believe that you're in there under all the mess.  Because you are, and you're worth all the effort in the world to rescue. 

That's what I want my book to show.  I hope it does, just a little bit.  I'd be more than happy with that.

Love, R

Miracles and Pina Colada Sloppiness

I've had the most extraordinary three days.  Amazing.  Astounding.  To start off, I held my memoir in my own hands for the very first time today.  What a strange and surreal experience, to flip open a thin little book and read about playing rabid mommy with my children; to know that the strange words describing the strange game were written by me, about my life.  That was the first thing I opened to, spraying whipped cream in my mouth and chasing my gleefully shrieking kids around the house.  A snapshot of my life, a window of memory wide open and breezy for the world to see.  I hope and pray this silly little volume will do what I want it to do.  I hope it will help somebody.  In my heart, I hope it will help a lot of somebodies.  What a gorgeous tree topper to a scraggly tree of experience that would be, to have my past help anybody.  At first glance, what a sorry sight, but with the right lighting, a bit of tinsel and some sparkle, magic. 

Ran around today with my dear kindred spirit pal, ordering copies of my Freak comic and talking to the people at Borders Books about a book signing.  All exciting.  Then we went back to his studio and I listened en rapt as he created and recorded a song as I sat there, slack-jawed with awe, my happy artistic soul fat and sassy with all the creativity in the air.  A wonderful day.

Yesterday was super hero day.  Once again, Tiana saved the day at work.  Last Mother's Day, when I passed out from my uber sensitive emotions regarding such an important day, she caught me before I hit the ground.  Literally caught me.  Sunday afternoon was the same.  I was at work, filling a bread basket, when a co-worker came running in and yelled, "She's choking!  She can't breathe and nothing's working!  She's choking!"  I dropped the basket and ran out and yelled, "WHERE?" in time to see little Tiana performing the Heimlich maneuver on a blue-tinged old lady.  The chunk of cucumber flew out of her mouth, she sucked in a great vacuum wheeze of air, and Tiana and the manager hovered over her.  Amazingly, the cool old lady said she was fine, sat back down, calmed her panicky husband, and forked another bite of salad into her mouth.  I brought her a seltzer water for her sore throat and she gave a shaky laugh.  Tiana disappeared for a moment. 

That's when I noticed the pina colada slop all over the counter.  A tray of drinks had been hurled like a Frisbee across the steel surface, fruit garnish swimming in a sea of pina colada mix and iced tea decorated with broken glass.  Tiana had seen the woman's distress and simply threw the whole thing out the way to get to her.  I swear, I saw a big red S that day, stamped on the curvy chest of that tiny hero as she shook and trembled at the magnitude of what had happened.  I cleaned up the goop, grinning a mad grin of delight at the whimsical humor of Fate, placing a brave young woman in a restaurant at just the right moment to save an embarrassed but spunky old lady, who sat carefully chewing her lobster with wobbly dentures only minutes after she almost died.

God, I love life.  Every day, there's something jaw-dropping and beautiful, even when it sucks so badly you'd rather check out than take another breath.  It makes me think of my beloved Charlie in World War II, dodging bullets and mortar shells to suddenly notice a graceful wild orchid curling directly over his head.  A snapshot of beauty in the middle of hell.  They're everywhere, these picture albums of images, and each one is a gift of forgetfulness when times are bad, a small respite in wartime and a miracle of joy in times of panic. 

Take care, and enjoy your own personal album of memories, as individual as you are and almost as precious.

Love, R 

Warm Liquid Goo

Remember the scene in the first Austin Powers movie where he is defrosted in the warm liquid goo?  My roommate bought me some magnificent purple warm liquid goo to soak my aching waitress feet in and it was glorious.  Smelled like lavender.

Today I was woken up by the ding-a-ling of my cell phone's message alert.  It was a friend telling me she had just purchased what I believe might be the first sale of my book Freak.  As you can imagine, I couldn't go back to sleep after that.  A ting-a-ling eternity later, I'd read half a zillion text messages of friends and had a sore ear from phone calls about the fact that this looonnggg project is finally a real book.  I'm psyched by the comment about Barnes&Noble, where they've got a twenty-something preview on their ebook nook site.  Will have to go there and see exactly what twenty-something pages were chosen but for now, I'm just basking in the warm liquid goo feeling of a monster project finally completed.  So thanks for all the calls, texts, and early bird orders, my friends.  I hope the book lives up to your expectations and does what it's supposed to do: help screwed up nutballs like me to feel better about themselves and cultivate a little self-love of their own.  Go do a bit of inner child nurturing and soak in heavenly purple goo, if only mentally.  Better yet, have your feet in lovely lavender slop while you meditate on how much, in fact, you don't suck.

Love, R

Live

Hello, my dear pals out in cyber land.  I got some amazing news today.  My book has now officially gone "LIVE," which means it's available for sale.  Right now it's only semi-vigorous since it's only available at the publishing house iuniverse.com but will be available on Amazon and Barnes&Noble websites soon.  Very thrilled about it all.  They've shipped out my copies today and I will be holding my own memoir in a few days.  Very surreal and wonderful.  Wish me luck in all this and let's hope the book can help as many people as possible.  That's its purpose, to help nutball cases like me.  Thanks for reading my blog and all your enthusiasm throughout this long, long haul.  Now the new stage begins.  Keep your fingers crossed that I do a good job out there.  I truly believe the book is important.  Let's hope and pray it does great good for the shattered and miserable out there and enlightens everybody else.  As Marie Curie said, every bit of knowledge is a tiny candle illuminating the future.  Make enough light and people are bound to see.  What would a  night sky be without stars?  A big black nothing.  But with all those tiny twinkles, it's magic and just think; those tiny twinkles are hot ass balls of fiery gas.  That's as good a description as any of a broken soul, ha ha!  We're hot ass balls of fiery gas but we're really really beautiful and life-giving.  Take care to recognize that in yourselves and have a good laugh at everything that went into making us that way.

Love, R