what i need

- my mom asked a couple of weeks ago what I would like for a birthday present. I said that there was nothing I really need, and that a donation to the rehab centre or to CLAW would be good. We spoke earlier this evening, and she said again that she wants a present idea, that they donate to charity and people often anyway.

I couldn't think of anything, but promised that I would try. It came to me just now, as I reread Pat Conroy's book 'Beach Music', and the characters are talking about the nature of love. Jack is so scared that his own inabilities will come back to haunt his child as she grows. I have none of that in my life; my family and friends have always loved openly. I have always known what love is. My failures are mine alone.

Forgiveness, mommy-bear. Think that is what I will need as a gift this year. God knows that I can't forgive myself for loving someone the way I love the dude. Not wisely, not well, but overwhelmingly.

A life without love is not a life that is worth enduring.....