Today I was going to write an entry about how awful I've been feeling physically, and how this diet for my hives really sucks and how depressed I am about the whole situation thing. But then I thought of something more interesting, so I'll save the former idea for a day when I can't come up with anything good. Unless of course I start feeling better, in which case you won't have to hear about it at all.

I save a lot of my old emails, one that are both to and from me. (I actually wish I had saved more of them, but oh well.) I really enjoy going back and reading through them and reminiscing about things. I especially enjoy reading what I've written because it allows me to see my state of mind at the time. I change so much every year that I often forget just how different I've been at different stages of my life. That's one of the reasons I've started an online journal. I don't particularly want to record every single thing that happens to me every day, but I do like to have records of some of the things that I'm thinking about. Not only does having it online allow me to share my thoughts with other people, but the fact that these will all be here years from now allows me to share my thoughts with myself, too. So today I'm going to share an excerpt from an email I wrote to a significant other towards the end of our relationship.

…I always say to myself, those nights when I'm in my bed crying alone that the thing I'm really craving is someone who will be there every second of every day, taking care of me, some sort of vision I can't really describe, something to make all this pain go away. Of course, I say to myself, such a thing doesn't really exist, so I've got to fix myself up before I can get close to anyone. That's rather a catch-22 though, because if I never had anyone I'd never be fixed, not even a little. It's really just something I tell myself as an excuse for not getting close to anyone, something I say to make myself feel better when an attempt to reach out feels like it's failed. And I'm afraid, I'm afraid I'm just an act. All this stuff about being intelligent and interesting and all that seems to me just to be things I picked up along the way through no fault of my own; what's really me is a girl breaking into tears, wishing for some arms around her and yet covering up if anyone should happen to glance her way…

The strongest emotion that I feel when reading this is gratitude because it reminds me once again of how depressed I once was and how much better I am now. Even though my life is far from perfect, I no longer stay up all night crying. When I do cry, I usually have a concrete reason, rather than a nameless and everlasting feeling of pain. When I wrote this I was just beginning to make the journey out of that. I had just begun therapy, which, although comparatively short and obviously difficult, showed me some of the roots of my problems and made me realize that I had power over my problems. A wonderful friend (who later became my husband) showed me that it was possible for a person to like me for who I was and to be there for me. He continues to show me this every day. God showed me that He was there, He had been there all along, loving me. I'm very lucky to be where I am today. I'm glad I have these old emails to help me remember that. I'm also glad to know that while I didn't get exactly what I wanted, I did get exactly what I needed.

To end, I'll just note that yesterday I learned that my oldest dog Bramble is now developmentally older than me in human years. You wouldn't know it to look at her.

Bramble is, by the way, keeping me company in the office today. She is fun to have around, but I keep being afraid she'll find some interesting and expensive ultrasonic thing and chew it up.