It is nothing more than pride that keeps me from writing. The same stupid pride that keeps me bound up in the rest of life - afraid of showing some weakness, of being laughed at or looking silly, of being myself and having that self seem ridiculous, foolish or inadequate...Pride is what undoes me. What holds me back. What holds me IN. What keeps me inside...What keeps all these words inside. The desire to be impressive, to impress....the need to "look good", the mortal dread that my writing is not sufficiently "mature" or "sophisticated", or that it will reveal too much of its author, that people will see through it to the parts of me I prefer to keep hidden - weak, flawed, self absorbed, brutally lonely...My "image" editor chips away until I have nothing left. And what I DO write feels hollow, because it does not come from ME, but some place outside of me in the realm of "how I would like to be seen" or things I deem to be "safe" to write about. Pride, Vanity, Ego...foolishness.

It seems, at last, I have found a use for this space.

If i can make a fool of myself HERE, in this "public" place...maybe, just maybe I can start getting past this. If i can release words HERE, where people MIGHT actually read them - If i can let "imperfect" sentences loose, hit "POST" and not look back....

And the first order of business is to correct a glaring omission.

To run to someone in private, in time of need...for comfort, for help... to find strength in them, wisdom and guidance...to have them pick up you up off your face when you are at your lowest and give you hope, and set you on a better path...to have such a person quietly and patiently endure your mistrust, your scorn, your outright abuse, yet remain faithfully at your side and receive you with mercy when all your other, cooler "friends" disappear and you come running back ...

To have a friend like this, and yet be reluctant to publicly name them a friend or be seen with them...most would agree, i think, that to fail to acknowledge such a friend would be dishonest, hypocritical, and, well, Jerk-ish.

You, my God, My friend since my youth. YOU have done this. Whatever IS happening in my life, IF anything is happening, Whatever is good...YOU have done it. I know this. It is not honest of me to claim this as my own doing, or even to allow that misconception to be held. There have been choices I made, to be sure, but they would have been good choices to make at any point in the last few years, and I repeatedly failed to make them. And the very FIRST choice made, that is, the first that made a difference - was a choice to stop nursing my anger against you, to humble myself and admit that I, the great, mighty ME....I needed you. And that i had been making a royal mess of things all these years when i thought i knew better, when I was determined that i was going to take my life in my own hands and through pure force of will make it what i thought it should be, what YOU, in my mind, had failed to deliver. I only succeeded in making a rather complete ass of myself and sinking even deeper into the hole that I was mad at you for not digging me out of in the first place. As if You existed to serve my whim. As if i had any grounds on which to make demands of you. As if there could possibly be anything that you OWED me. Anyway.

I must give credit where credit is due. Even if none but me yet see what I thank you for. I am not yet where i will be, but i am not where i was. And where I am going, You are taking me.

A Clumsy, Ineloquent, profoundly insufficient gesture, i know...But...

Perhaps it is still a selfish one, too, for i know of no other means to attack this crippling, imprisoning pride than to acknowledge You, and make a fool of myself doing so, to "Come Out" as hopelessly, desperately in need of You, and to release the need to do so in the most elegantly crafted prose possible...