Growing up, my favorite quote was from Orson Welles:  ”We are made out of oppositions, we live between two poles. . . you don’t reconcile the poles, you just recognize them.”

Growing through this blog, I had till now two alternatives for this page: the short one, which was what I used at first, and the long one, which was a recent attempt at writing a new description.

Here’s my somewhere-in-between-those version of me – with a few beautiful words from a friend, someone who has known me long and knows me well.  Because I am always searching in my life for balance, it brings the best and brightest things to me.

What about me?  I’m one hell of a wild ride.  Hang on tightly and let go completely, or you will be lost.  But I’m worth it.

“You are infinitely stronger than you know.  You have amazing gifts, unparalleled brilliance, innate talents.  You have an intellect that God only bestows upon a very few.  You are gifted and you are a gift to the world.”

These words, which have propped me up and made me better, come from the same amazing woman who said to me she could always tell me anything, she never worried, because she knew I held her in “unconditional positive regard.”  That’s something about me that’s true, but I don’t know if I realized it and I wouldn’t have been able to put it so succinctly.

“When you were 14. . .  You were fearless in word and dress. . .  You were audacious, hilarious, brilliant, intuitive, and deeply caring.  You filled a room.”  I filled a room.  Wow.  I filled a room.  I did, too.  And I still do, sometimes like it or not.  But I like it.  I also like that I can read the other qualities she listed and nod my head.  They are still me.  They were always me.  They always will be me.  Em, thank you forever and ever for these words.

Other things I want to tell you about me?  I have already, just not in one central place.

I’m wildly madly batshit crazy.  Both by temperament and diagnosis.  But I am also patient, so patient, more patient than an oyster creating a pearl from a single grain of sand.  In addition to the intellect mentioned, I am blessed with a very broad and deep well of knowledge, which I have acquired over and through the years I have lived.  Some of it has come easily, some of it, not so much. And if you’re curious about the number on said years, depending upon whom you ask it varies between three-ish-or-so decades and a thousand years or more.

I have a brilliant gift for using the written word, using it properly and using it well.

I have blue eyes and very good friends and an amazing family and ambition and love to give that is limitless.  I have an undisciplined body and an understanding heart.  I have a love of good music, old films, and great literature.

I have a confidence in myself that few ever possess.  A kind of self-assurance, in the very best sense of the word.  Lots of factors have given me this gift.  I am happy to say that I am one of those factors.

I am the most stubborn son-of-a-bitch whom you will ever encounter in your lifetime.

My instincts are beautiful.  I’m a free spirit.  I’m so amazingly creative, and I am also deeply analytical.

I have most insightfully called myself a phoenix many times through the years, because in this life I have crashed and burned and risen from the ashes of my own disasters to make something beautiful more times than I can recall.

I am curious and beautiful and honest and a writer and an advocate and a reader.  I am wonderful with children, I take interesting photographs, I am loyal and supportive, I am kind, I understand the things in this life that cannot be understood, and I can love like no one you have ever met in all of your days.  Actually, we’ll let Em’s words close with this point, because if I want you to remember one thing about me always, if I could pick, it would be how I love, and how I love all of you.  Take it away, Em.

“Your value is limitless, and your capacity for love infinite.”

Fin

While I still love this description of myself best, at last I’ve “come out” and added something for those of you who are interested in a more factual, down-to-brass-tacks kind of bio.  Satisfy your curiosity by looking Behind The Curtain.

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