going sane

I would like to report to the world that my Bachelor’s Degree (as in, the piece of paper proclaiming that I have one) is finally in a nice frame and hanging on my wall.

I’m not sure why this means so much.

Maybe because I had carefully pressed this (like a wildflower brought back to me from Mahler’s composing hut by my former teacher) between pages of a big book, and kept it in a box.

Maybe it’s time to be proud of myself.  6 years after the fact.

—

Kind of like how, 11 years after the fact, Mr. Cosmic Clarinet met me at a party and, in the course of a starkly honest talk, said, "I should have told you I love you.  I wouldn’t have used that word back then."

Nice to know I wasn’t completely crazy to think he loved me.  Silly that I carried around the sad story of "I’m never right about how men feel about me, so I’ll just assume they don’t love me" for 11 years.

—

After literally years of being sick of myself and my own words, I’ve started going back to look at old paper journals.  I am full of fondness and admiration for myself.  I’m so proud of myself for fighting upstream all that time, against all the unrelenting negativity I lived in.  Why *didn’t* I become a psychopath?  I’m grateful for the mysterious strength that was always there underneath.

I also recognize that I am now surrounded by possibly the healthiest, most loving group of people I’ve ever been priviledged to know.  Not perfect, but humble, and always willing to figure out how to love each other better.