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Corrie is right. Nothing that others do is about you. It is like we are going through a second adolescence – you know life is like a party that our inner teenager won’t go to because they have a zit on their nose. We are all conscious of ourselves and the impact everyone has on us. When in fact they are not thinking of us at all.



Well, this certainly rings true. But maybe not exactly in the way that you mean it.

In my darker moods, I sometimes phrase it to myself as I'm a character in a book that's really about someone else. And not a major character, either. All I can do is watch, from a distance and through a glass, darkly, and try to discern the "real'" plot of the story.

Come to think of it, that describes my childhood pretty well. And maybe my life in general. Things happen "to" me. My mother tells me she'll be going away for eight weeks, an eternity to an 8-year-old. My husband tells me he's leaving me for a younger woman. My boyfriend tells me that he's decided to date my best friend. And I can't really do anything except accept their decisions and try to deal with my feelings as well as I can. Which in most cases, wasn't very well.

Look, I'll tell you a secret (well, you and everyone else on the internet ). The time I felt "best" about myself was (long, long ago when I was really and truly -- not just legally -- single) when I had a brief affair with a married man.

Now, of course, at least at the beginning, I had no idea he was married. I didn't think to ask and he certainly didn't tell me. But when I found out, I felt this odd (and kinda sick) surge of power and confidence in myself. For once, I was the one being chosen, the one who mattered, the one with the power to just walk away and end it. Which I did.

L