Looking through a glass darkly.

Isn't it wonderful how a few kind and gentle words can change one's life? Kindness and gentleness have been foreign and completely unknown to me in my past, and to all of sudden be faced with the fact that I can be treated thusly totally boggles my mind.

Call me old fashioned, antiquated, out of step with the 21st century, or whatever. But, this woman will go to her grave believing that a kind word will help to ease a lot of pain and a gentle nature will bring forth love, compassion, tenderness, and complete devotion.

None of us should be afraid of being honest and forthright with anyone and everyone with whom we come in contact. However, the lack of compassion while being honest and forthright is usually abrasive and often, hurtful. The need for tenderness from someone we love, when it isn't met, can be devastating. To have someone completely devoted to me would bring that wall of protection I've built around myself tumbling down into a pile of dust. Love is a word that should never be used lightly because love hurts like a dull ache that just won't go away while it causes great and boundless joy. Deprive a person of love and watch that person become an empty shell - resembling a human being but unable to be humane.

Tomorrow, I take a huge step into my unknown future. What path it leads me toward, I have no idea. There may be nothing more that comes from tomorrow than a new friend - and that would be okay. Right now, I'm sobbing quietly as I type this in hopes that I may, finally, have found my soul mate. Don't you, dear reader, cry for me. Laugh with me because for a little while, at least, I am young again.