The Two Me's

I am in the midst of moving. Some of what is being packed are my journals and one journal was sitting all by itself and I looked at it. It was the journal I kept when I retired from civil service in 2002. I looked at parts of it and read this day's entry for it was set in the same time of the year. I could tell immediately that there were differences between the self that was going through a transition in 2002 and the transition that I am going through now.

That is the advantage of keeping journals for I would have thought that there was nothing new between those two periods of time and the journal told me differently. I could tell that I was still tied up with my job at the state agency I had walked out of at the end of March of 2002. There were some communication happening and I was feeling pain and sorrow from it. I was also active with the state union although I was in a transition period with them as well. I was the president of the Northern California part and a assistant chairperson of a committee that was very active in civil rights. On that day, April 28, 2002, I was finishing and returning from training some stewards in Sacramento.

There was no doubt I was feeling doubt about the future as I am now. I think from the writing that I was more tied into the past as I am now. I was angry and hurt from what had happened on the work site and was inclined to think about that. I wanted an end to that pain and tried to find ways of dodging that pain through my writing. I can see dark depression in everything I wrote then and it seems to pour off the page. I can certainly understand that reaction, but I was in no mood to feel it then. I wanted it gone. I wanted to get to the next chapter and to end the one I was in.

Although I am in a similar place, I am not so depressed although I could feel it when I read the journal. The degree of unhappiness that I am feeling is not going anywhere soon as I am not completely happy with the move that I am undertaking although I can see the necessity of it as I could see it in 2002. I will continue to feel what I am feeling now when I complete the final stage to Portland. I am sad about the broken relationship with my oldest son although I am optimistic about healing it sometime in the future. It just won't be happening anytime soon.

I think I am more honest now. I am more honest at how I look at him and certainly more honest at how I look at his father. I need time away from James and I am hoping never to see Dan again. I look at the nine long years that happened between the transition period that occurred in 2002 and now and I want to say that it is about time some growth took place. I am trying not to chastise myself like that anymore. Life has a way of beating one over the head. I don't need to add blows to this.

I look out of my window and can see how things change. A sycamore tree that has been there since I bought this house in 1997 has died and its dead bare branches stretch out from a corner of the window. Two new houses were built across the street and I can just barely see the tops of the roofs. What I can't see so readily are the changes that happened to me over the years. Pictures can show the ravages of time, but not what has been happening inside. Journals can do that. Mine certainly showed me aspects of me that had changed in the chapter of transition when I retired. Other journals that I wrote in Korea showed me other changes. I think I am more able to accept these situations. It still does not mean it gets easier. Change is never easy but as a tree that is tossing and turning never slows down the river my protesting the change never really slows down the passing of the years. It just happens. Life is what it is.

VS Naipaul’s Rules for Beginners

VS Naipaul’s Rules for Beginners

1. Do not write long sentences. A sentence should not have more than ten or twelve words.

2. Each sentence should make a clear statement. It should add to the statement that went before. A good paragraph is a series of clear, linked statements.

3. Do not use big words. If your computer tells you that your average word is more than five letters long, there is something wrong. The use of small words compels you to think about what you are writing. Even difficult ideas can be broken down into small words.

4. Never use words whose meaning you are not sure of. If you break this rule you should look for other work.

5. The beginner should avoid using adjectives, except those of colour, size and number. Use as few adverbs as possible.

6. Avoid the abstract. Always go for the concrete.

7. Every day, for six months at least, practice writing in this way. Small words; short, clear, concrete sentences. It may be awkward, but it’s training you in the use of language. It may even be getting rid of the bad language habits you picked up at the university. You may go beyond these rules after you have thoroughly understood and mastered them.

I am not saying that you should follow the above rules without exception, but these are good rules to keep in mind. I am also a believer in breaking rules too. Still, these rules that I found today are great and if you need some rules in your writing life, you can't get any better than these.

Dark Hour of Despair

What happens when the dark hour of despair turns out to be a dark day, week, month and so on of despair? When I am writing on my own blog, I try to have the answer before I begin. What does a writer do when she or he turns around and faces rejection on everyone or those we treasured the most? We feel despair and then we pick up the pen otherwise we die. When we feel totally alone in the world and we have gotten old enough when most of our friends have died, we feel the dark night of despair we turn to the spiritual guides but we do it with writing.

Certainly, what is happening to me right now is not unique. When times are hard,writers, artists, are busy expressing themselves through their art. That is why so much of what humans are capable in artistic endeavor develops in hard times. I was born into hard times surrounded by good times. It remains to be seen if I can rise above what has happened to be the artist and writer I need to be in order to express what is happening to me and not fall down to the suspicion that it is not happening but in my mind, the black hole of all writers that rises up as a black wall to stop the words from coming from the mind and soul and yes from the heart. In short, I must believe in myself and my vision.

In all writers, there is a center where doubt comes up and becomes, if allowed, the black hole of despair and decay, some call it the monkey mind and others call it a writer's block, the gray cloud, or whatever. It stops one from believing in one self. Every single writer has a valid message and work to give to the world. It may not end up in the Canon of memorable fiction or non-fiction but every writer if he or she is true to their craft has something valid to offer. One must believe in that. As the putting of one foot in front of another, it is the putting of one word after the other in spite of the fact that others might not agree it does not matter you must believe, the writer must believe.

Some people write and no one reads. That is the miracle of the Internet. I put my stuff out there and some people read. My despair does not involve my ability to communicate for that is coming along just fine. It is my personal life where my family sees me differently than I do. That could be a point of sadness when love becomes a trap, a way of controlling another. I find that intolerable.

I have had love affairs in my life, some consummated and others not; but the greatest love affair I ever had is the one I am still having with the English language. It has been a wild ride that I am determined to continue. It is most useful when the darkest hour of despair is upon me as it is right now. Could anyone ask for anything else?

Lawsuits, etc.

Ted called me from Key West this morning. I liked that since I just got a call from someone who wanted to talk to my youngest son. I asked who it was since I just put the phone on the charger and I knew my son was still asleep. I said I was my son's mother. He said he was my son's grandfather. I ran to the other side of the house since the only grandfather was my ex-husband's father and I was afraid something had happened to my oldest son who is a state policeman. My son ran and answered the phone and it was his father who had disguised his voice. I breathed a sigh of relief. My son gave his father his correct phone number for future reference although his other brother has it. I have no idea why he needed to call me.

Of course, Ted, was full of espresso and not feeling well as he had just been served a summons. He was ready to release a book in a few days in which he describes a rape that happened to him when he was nine years old. The rapist had read an advance copy of the book that he got from Ted's mother and he felt that people would know who he was from the description. He was suing Ted for damages and an order to stop the release of the book.

"It just brings up all of the things I felt back then," he said over the phone. I could hear the hissing of the espresso machine and people talking in the distance. "He told me not to tell anyone although I was injured. My mother saw the blood on my shorts and took me to the hospital. I told her who it was and she didn't tell the police either. None of us did."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because he was my father's brother and he was supporting us. Dad was somewhere trying to make a big killing or something. My mother said if he was arrested or people knew he raped a boy, he would harm him as a doctor. And we would not have any money to live on. "

That part was not in the book. I had read the advance copy of the book already. It was his best and did not want to see it stopped although I had no idea if his uncle had enough to do that. I asked him about that.

"No, the publisher always makes sure I have plenty of evidence before we start a run of a book. I have a notarized statement from my mother and from a cousin who was raped by him too. He does not know we have that. I support my mother now so he does not have the power of the purse anymore."

I thought about the many writers that did not have that and how many of them have been sued some for good reasons and some for speaking the truth when someone did not want the truth out there. I heard an lawyer at a League of Women Voters say that the worst thing you can do to a public official was to embarrass him or her. I think that goes for anyone. The doctor in question was now retired. I wonder why the cousin did not sue him except that it was beyond the statue of limitations or men still find it embarrassing that they were raped by men. Ted is not one of them, thank goodness.

Ted said that although he knew he was gay before he was raped, but he had nightmares from that experience for years. He had told his uncle that he might be gay and was scared with that knowledge and the good doctor told him that he gave him some lessons on what it was like to be gay. Ted wrote about being powerless and starring at the mattress as he was being held down and for a long time he thought of sex as painful and degrading. He found out it was not that way at all although he has not been able to sustain a long lasting relationship with anyone, but that is another book he will write someday. He did not want to tell me about it as it would ruin the book if he did.

What he did want to talk about was a discussion that he had with another writer who said writers are not what they write about and Ted had disagreed. Another writer who wrote about writing meditation and novels as well was there in Key West for a writer's workshop and she agreed with Ted. She said she had different parts of her self in her novels and that she was her books but in metaphor form. I had to think about that for a while. Am I my books, stories, these blogs? Yes and no.

Ted said that several other writers were of that opinion. Sometimes the stuff they wrote were not of themselves but from somewhere else outside of self, almost a spiritual bonding of the writer and of the Cosmos. I liked that and agreed to it in part. Sometimes when I am writing, something takes over and I am writing with something else I can't identify that writes with me. Sometimes, it is not there. Ted said he never has that feeling but works on uncovering the layers of experiences that is him so he is what he writes. The writing meditation teacher agrees although she feels a spiritual connection it is still her writing,her words.

I am sure the debate continued after I got off the phone. Ted was there with the other writers for the same conference on writing. He is always amazed that people pay so much money to just hear them in person. Sometimes when it is not far from where I live, he sends me tickets to those conferences. I go when I can. It is the transportation that is the problem. Still, he did raise some interesting questions as he always do. There are no definite answers.

The Ending

A blog that I was reading about advice for writers said that a writer should write the ending of his or her novel first. I always know the ending of a novel that I am working on and of late the ending of a short story although I may not know exactly how the characters will get there. I just create them and let them loose. That may not be how other writers do it, but that is my way. I hate it when they do what they want to do instead of what I want them to do but the ending is always the same. Joe always ends up with Jill or Sally ends up will Sadie or whatever. What I never know is the information they learn along the way. I learn right along with the characters.

There has been many times that I know a character will do something but not for the reason I assumed it would be. I think that happens in real life except in fiction we get to study them a bit before they act or after wards. For instance, my ex-husband trashed my house in my absence last year. I was astonished and never really understood completely why although I have hints. If it was a story I would have been forewarned by traveling with the character before he did it and after wards. I have a feeling the ex-husband is dealing with issues that have nothing to do with me. As a writer I would have been able to play with it in fiction.

I wrote a response to a letter to the editor supposedly written by a fifth grader yesterday in the Record Searchlight. I suspected it was not but by a child but by a parent. The letter writer used the movie, "The Princess Bride", to make a point about reality. Reality has many different sides that we can never see as a human being in the drama that is being played out and a movie is a very thin slice of that drama. Fiction is a more satisfying portrayal of what is happening but is still not the complete truth. Nothing is. I am still learning about things that happened to me as a teenager. I see things that I did not understand back then but now with more information of life understand more. Its a complex business. I cautioned her not to derive her sense of reality from the movies.

As in novels, life has only one ending. That is an easy one. The train track that we are going down at this increasingly fast speed ends the same way. Each of us, no matter how much we hope differently, will die. It is the middle that changes and that is where the pen hits the paper or the fingers hits the keys. The is the whole crux of the matter. A few times when I wrote murder mysteries, which I so love to read, I knew the what the crime or murder was but rarely how it was done. I could come up with why and even who the murderer was. I was short on the details on how the crime was done. The crime was the perfect crime for even I couldn't figure out how it was done. In real life, I was too aware that most criminals are stupid.

I love it when the reasons we do things are a mystery even from ourselves. I see this happen over and over again especially when I worked as a social worker. I see mothers who live controverted lives in their households so they wouldn't find out that their husbands were molesting the children because he was bringing in big paychecks. Ugly as it was, they were unaware consciously they were doing this although it was plain to me. People live lives on several layers all of the time. It is called denial. Heavens know I have been there on many occasions.

Writers live in denial too and that is why we should all have the edit pencil at hand or the delete key handy. We put things away for a time and return and see things we missed before glaring at us. Some writers call it "killing our babies" because we have to delete some of our best writing because it just does not belong in the story. Some writers put it aside to use in another story or book which I think is a great idea.

Time is a great healer for many things in real life but it gives the much needed detachment for our work and helps us spot things we would not have otherwise have seen before. It is that way in life as I wrote I understand things that happened to me in the past because we change. Again, we need it too in our writing although we do have to let our work go and start new stories, books or we get mired in the traps of perfection which is not a good thing for writers, a little but not a swamp that buries us.

My friend Ted who writes memoirs always knows the ending of his books. He is alive when he starts his books and he is alive when he ends it. He likes to say his books are his celebration of his sobriety. He is uncovering one layer after another as he descends into the madness that was his life for so long. Once he exhausts these layers and the mine is finally bare, he figures he will start to write novels or something. He isn't worried. The vein of gold that he is working on is very rich.

I think that is better than Forest who sends his servant-wife out there into the world to have adventures with who knows who and what and then makes her report them in detail so he can write a book about them. I often wonder who takes care of the children when she is out there having adventures. Forest can do that because he is good in turning out good prose, but Ted is right when he says his fiction is surface fiction. His characters rarely understand what is going on around them. They just enjoy the world in lurid phases and enjoy the good life. What the heck, people buy his books but I notice there is always a bunch in the second hand stores. No one seems to want to keep them. Forest always knows the end of his books and after he talks to his servant-wife, he knows the middle. I am curious about his servant-wife's sense of self or lack of one that she is willing to do anything he wants. She even wears clothes that he picks out for her that is very suggestive. She is still young enough to wear them but what happens when she gets too old? Will he find willing women? Experience tells me that if you have enough money you will.

I enjoy writing. I think one should write the way it is the most enjoyable. Of course, most writers don't depend on their earnings to pay the rent or house payment and put food in the fridge. Forest is the exception as Ted is. Most even with books to their credit have day jobs. That is why being a writer has been an occupation for the upper classes. It is certain that I don't depend on it for if I did I would be homeless. There is lots of advice out there for writers. That very fact used to appall me because I thought there must be a lot of writers out there making a living. Now, I try not to think about it and just do what I want to do and have some fun doing it. I think one should always know the end of a story or novel as one knows the end of life but like everything else, it isn't necessary so in fiction. In life, I am afraid nothing you can do is going to get you out of that date with the cemetery no matter what religion you follow tells you. Sorry....

Anger Novels

I just received a novel that will be released from a friend who wanted me to read it. I was flattered as she is a good writer and she normally writes short stories. She wrote it a few years ago when she was angry with her then husband. She thought I would understand. I divorced mine over 25 years ago and he recently released some pent up anger at me during my absence on my house last year.

Susan said she wrote the novel instead of short stories because she knew her anger was way too big for a mere short story. I asked her if that was the reason she wrote in the first place. She said she did not give it a thought until a mutual friend, Ted, told her that he started to write so he could kill his abusers on paper instead of in person. One cannot go to prison for killing people in a story as in real life. She loved the idea and started the novel with the idea of writing it for her own amusement, but it went into a novel and her agent loved it when she showed it to her.

So, I took some time out of what I was doing to my house and read it and to be honest I could not put it down. It is called "Time out Time" and it is about a mild mannered wife who supports her husband through law school and during the time when he tries to pass the law exams and until he finds a job "worth his talents". Then as soon as he finds the ideal job, he moves out. All this took 15 years. Then on top of that, a neighbor tells her that during the time he was supposed to be studying for his law exams, he was screwing every housewife in the neighborhood who would have him. This was a mirror of what really did happen.

Unlike Ted, she did not want to kill Matt. She wanted to get even. Since, she did not have to support Matt anymore she found an attorney who was able to get her some money but not much. She sold her house which she bought with money she got from her mother's estate although her then husband tried to get anyhow. She had a good attorney and he prevented that since it was premarital money. Her mother died before they were married and she bought it. She quit her job and sold the house for a nice price and for this current time was a miracle. She sold her short stories and the last collection did very well.

She kept returning to the novel and how she got even with her ex-husband. First, she found out the dream job he was able to get was based on the romance he had going with the daughter of the main partner. In the novel she messed up that romance by subtle tricks that showed him involved with other women except it worked even better when it turned out to be true. She dumped him and the law firm edged him out. He found another job that paid him a lot less but several girl friend found themselves pregnant as someone put pin holes in all of the condoms that he kept in his dresser. It was very foolish of him to leave his key under the doormat as he usually did. Susan did not think that would be believable since most woman would take birth control but the editor kept it.It illustrated who the ex-husband's character was and the type of women he was involved with. In a few months he would be having to pay birth control. It was so easy to do since Susan was so trusting during their marriage. He did not think other woman would be so angry.

A surprising thing happened during the writing of the novel. Susan found that her main character was getting over her ex and getting on with her life. She dropped the vengeance game and started to get on with her life. What made the book really real for me was that she did not find romance and find happiness again but she came to grips with the whole fairy tale story itself. She began to examine what it mean to have a life of one's own. She became acquainted with herself and found out what she really wanted in her life. She started to look back on the dreams she gave up so her husband could have his. With the money in the bank, she did what her mother wanted her to do in the first place and that was to enter medical school.

The book was about what goes through a woman's life when she starts to do what she really wants to do and what other people thinks of her when she does. It was a remarkable read. She had become a nurse so that she could work long hours to support her husband. Now, she was free to get on with her life and she was astonished that she wasted so much time on revenge. She was glad he left.

Of course, Susan did not go to medical school; but she started to do the things she wanted to do before she was married. She also never wrote novels because the turn around for money was too long. She is at work on her next novel. Now, she does what she wants to do. She does not think it will be an anger novel though; but I would not want to see her angry again or do I? The novel she wrote far surpasses anything she had written before.

The Very Best of the Best

Sometimes, I can't write which is writer's block because I feel I can't write the best fiction or the best essay. It isn't enough that I can write the best I can do. It has to be the very best. It has to be the kind of writing that turns Gore Vidal green with envy. It has to be the kind of writing that raises Ernest Hemingway out of the grave kind of writing. Of course, I can't do that so I can't write.

Also, what sounds brilliant in the mind sounds mundane on the screen or on paper or when someone like Forest calls you up and tells you that it is crap. Then I run to the lake and just write in my journal where I don't have to be a genus but do have to write and write about how I am not understood by the world.

Oh, there are so many reasons why a writer can't be the best of the best and better than he or she is capable of being although this does not mean the writer doesn't write things that surprises the writer because that happens too. The writing process is such a mysterious process. Sometimes, we are crippled with fear when we leave our bodies and worry about what others think or what our friends and family will think. My friend Ted who writes memoirs told me that before he gave up alcohol and drugs he would drink and take drugs and take to his bed in mortal terror of what his relatives would think of the book he just released because it was so obvious he was writing about them. Then he told me later that they were such Philistines that they didn't even know he wrote books. He wasted his money on all that coke. He was never so glad to give up the drugs although he misses the times he would go to bars.

Ted tells me that Forest writes books that sells and even writes scripts that well known movies are made from but in a few years no one will remember any of his stuff because his work is what Ted calls surface crap. They please people because they don't have to think too much to read it and there is plenty of sex and deviant sex in it. Ted says he knows of several writers who read his books just to get the sex scenes for their own books. One time when Ted was talking to Forest he returned a call and got his servant-wife on the phone. He propositioned her since she said she said he got all of his sex information from their sexual escapades. She said yes and asked where they should meet. Ted was astonished for he was joking and thought she knew he was gay. He told her they had to wait until his meds took care of his STD.

It is true some writers don't have high standards for themselves, but many do. They work darn hard for one sentence or one paragraph. They do research so that what they are writing will be accurate. I read someone's first draft the other day and was knocked over her research of bats which played a part in the story of a biologist. She told me all of the work she did and even the interviews she did with scientists to make sure what she was writing was accurate. Even when you do research, if a fact is too strange for fiction the reader, the editor who sees it first, won't believe it. You have to back it up sometimes in your story with some evidence. One writer could not sell a book until he did that and he put it in the body of the story.It worked. It sold and did very well. There is something to the adage, stranger than fiction.

Sometimes, if you are in a bind when you want to write poetry better than Walt Whitman or win the Nobel Prize with one short story, it is best to write in your journal about the obsession so you can get some balance back. Just seeing these beliefs in writing is enough to get one chuckling to yourself and back to the word processor. I have a friend, Carol, who is an artist and makes an decent income doing book covers, children's books and sells her paintings at science fiction conventions. She also writes on the side and is one of the people who got burnt by a online press service who used her work without pay although it was with her permission. The publisher in question got her mixed up with someone else so that not only did her work get published for no pay, she got no credit for it. She said it took one long soak in the tub before she saw the humor in it and drew a cartoon and sold it to a newspaper and is now considering doing editorial cartoons. She would never have considered doing it without that mistake.

Carol said she knew of an artist who did pornography until the magazine wanted him to do some sex acts he thought might be illegal. He did a children's book instead and had a best seller. People had been telling him all along that he was the best in porn but not anything else. He feels better about his work especially since he has young children. His wife said she does not feel bad about cashing his checks anymore at the supermarket.

A writer's path is a strange one and getting obsessed about being the very best we can be is great but being better than one can possibly be can be the recipe to writer's block. One can say, "I can't write right now because I have writer's block". Forest who writes even during his sleep, as far as I know, never had writer's block. He says he never has. He also says he never edits as it all comes from his brain perfect. One time, I got one of his books free and took an editing pencil to it and I was surprised to see large sections that I would have edited out. Heck, he sells and he likes what he sells and his servant-wife likes to cash his checks at the supermarket. When your brain tells you that you can't write unless it is perfect, take a nice hot bath.

Criticism

I don't like criticism and will try very hard to avoid it as much as possible. I never read reviews of my stuff although to be honest I rarely get written up but do on occasion. So, it was with great reluctance that I answered the phone the other day because I could see that it was someone I try to avoid as much as possible. Even my friend, Ted, won't take his calls anymore. Jo Ann who just got her first novel published told me that she wanted to slit her wrists after one of his calls. She ended up throwing away her cell phone and it was not a cheap phone. It was one of those Android phones. She stopped the car on a busy bridge in Portland, got out and threw it into the river and then drove off. One guy yelled "Way to go!" She later told Sprint she lost it.

I will call this guy Forest as I know of no one by that name. He is a very successful writer and is far more successful than anyone I know in my small circle of writers. He is also a very critical man about what we all write about and how we do it. Ted told him in no uncertain terms what he could do with his word processor. The rest of us just stay on the phone and listen to him because he does write letters of recommendation to publishers and agents. In short, if I had them, I would say he has me by the balls.

Forest told me that I write too emotionally. I write about people in a too magical way. Life is so good, he says to me in his typical oily manner. You are always so optimistic and that is not realistic. I can hear his doting wife in the background as she fixes him those huge cups of ice because his desk and phone is near his private refrigerator. She cracks the ice tray and drops the ice in the cup and fills them up with his favorite drink, Pepsi Cola. I know he has kids, but he keeps them somewhere for as young as they are I never hear them. Forest tells me sometimes that she rubs his shoulders because he has to spend so many hours in front of the typewriter. Yes, he types his first draft on a typewriter and he likes to collect them. He must have dozens of typewriters.

He told Jo Ann that she wrote her first novel about her father who was a union organizer in too emotional way and that only women would read it. It is too early to tell if he is right or not. "To Kill A Mockingbird" is such a book, I counter. He tells me that I don't know what I am talking about and I bite my pencil in half. Forest said the only reason that Jo Ann got her book published was that the publisher liked books written about unions right now. Oh, he asked did I know her new phone number? No, I lied. I could not reach her. I understand she lost her phone.

Sometimes, I think we put up with too much because we think we need certain people. I think if I don't talk to Forrest ever so often I won't get the help I need when I do need it. He has helped on occasion. Maybe I am afraid to take a chance on finding a market for my stuff without his help. Ted doesn't need his help. He found his readers and he doesn't need him. I don't have such a loyal following. I asked my son to move out of my house and maybe I need to change my phone number too and make it a clean breast of getting bullies out of my life for Forest is a bully too.

Joseph Campbell said that if you follow your bliss, the Cosmos will help you in your quest. Other people have said the same thing and I have found it to be true. Maybe it is time to trust that adage and move on to be my own person and not lean on people who I dislike but think I have to have in my life because I need them. Maybe it is time to trust in my own vision and in my dreams.

It is also important to question why I put up with Forest's negative talk in the first place. All writers come with baggage from our past. It is important that we don't give our creative power away to good luck charms, beliefs we don't question and the truth of living in the present. I am blaming Forest for something I do to myself. He is a target for my anger when the real target is myself and the disdain I feel for his point of view. I can feel superior to him knowing he has made millions from his books but all he has his a servant wife and no friends. The problem isn't his but mine.

That is the trouble with criticism. It makes one look at things we would rather not look at. I don't think I like me when I think of Forest. Maybe, I need to throw the cell phone off the bridge too. I can't tell him where to put his word processor since he doesn't have one which made him even more angrier at Ted than he would have been. I remember Forest telling me several times how mad he got at Ted for saying he had one. I need to put a proper perspective on things and feel more confident in myself and in my own ability to find my own way home.