You recall that I said in my last entry that I emerged from junior high a damaged person. That is the truth. It manifested itself in a particularly horrendous fashion when I married someone who I thought I loved but turned out to be a huge mistake. Strangely, I could even see at the time how deranged some of my thinking was – I could see his flaws (at least some of them) and thought I still could save this man. Odd, I have never believed that either before or since – that I could save someone.

So, there was a perverse kind of ego elevation going on in my thinking when I was 23 years old as a backlash of all the years of repression by God, Church; and by my authoritarian parents rules. I wanted to have my own way for once. I thought I could do something! I could achieve this All By Myself!

I would excel in enduring misery, and I would be able to endure all the demands of raising step-children (this is how deluded I was- I knew nothing about raising children) I would surpass everything – I could make a sad man happy!!

More delusion – the idea that I would never have to face life alone and I would have someone who could help me.

About the young step children (2 and 4 years old) – when I first met their father I knew nothing about their existence because he didn’t tell me – until months after I met him and I was in love with him--yeah he was a real nice guy…

This mockery of a "marriage" went on for six years.

It’s interesting as I write this to revisit my head during those times. I thought and really expected things would be very tough. Why did I do it??? I was responsible as much as my lying, cheating, drug addicted husband was.

I honestly thought I loved him, that much is true. Also, it was partly rebellion, and maybe a way of punishing myself, although I would have denied it at the time. I thought I wouldn’t have to handle everything by myself. Also on one level I know I didn’t think I was worthy of true respect and love from anyone. I believed I would never achieve that. Perhaps I still do.

I have almost always thought that life is hard – since I was about 12, you could probably say with some justice that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s not always hard of course – there are beautiful moments all the time, and art, literature, and spirituality have been my friends, but I have this overall attitude that nothing comes easy and misery is the expected thing.

Getting back to the career issue, it was only during my divorce that sitting in the attorney’s office, watching the legal assistant, I realized “here is a job I can do, and I can make enough money to live.” That idea flashed into my head with force. Before then, I had only minimum wage or just above the minimum wage jobs in plant nurseries. For the first time in my life, at age 29, I had an idea that I could survive on my own..