The epiphanies are hitting left and right

I tell ya.  Things are really getting sorted out in the wash.  The more I work through all this the more insights I get.  I don't regret what I've written so far in the least, even when it was hard to write.

Last night, though, I felt a little apprehension regarding the stuff that comes next.  I'm very shamed by my teen years where I went through periods of extreme desperation for affection.  Add that to a lack of self control and no concept of moderation, and you have me looking very bad and very weak.

In fact, I was trying to figure out how to make the story work without a few key episodes.  Then I realized that since the rape in 1974, I've been hiding myself in one sort of shame or the other.  In order to really set myself free, I have to be myself no matter what that means.

If I hide it, then I'll know I hid it, I'll still feel shamed by it and I'll never be free from it.

So strap yourselves in, dear audience, it's going to be a bumpy ride.  We're talking a full on train wreck with me as the conductor.

I realized today that appearances have meant more to my family than the truth.  As long as we looked like we did the right thing, then it didn't matter what we did behind closed doors.

You can find true integrity that way.  And maybe, just maybe, my inability to feign perfection manifested itself in a very visible and unavoidable imperfection.

Either way, in order for this to work I have to have true integrity.  It doesn't matter what I did twenty years ago, it matters what I learned from it. 

Do me a favor, eh?  Keep reminding me of that.  Because this introspection stuff sucks, especially on in a public forum.

It is my hope, above all, that this book helps some other person from making the same mistakes I did.  That way they won't spend 30 years hiding from themselves like I did.