When I am feeling a little down and out there are a few things I do to get me back on track (they’re all frivolous, but helpful in some abstractly comforting way): I read my own tarot, I pay special attention to my dreams and interpret them, I watch a Disney movie, and I read through inspirational quotes which I’ve collected over time (I have binders full). Something about that foursome helps to center me, in a way it just  provides insight to the future, analyzes my current subconscious feelings, and supplies some sort of strength and hope. I’ve never really admitted to those things before (except the Disney movie, most people know I indulge myself when my brain needs a rest).  In fact, I’ve never really admitted to moments of weakness and self doubt before this website; everyone keeps telling me that you have to be tough, you have to act like you know what you’re doing. I’m just tired of that. I have no clue what I’m doing most of the time; the only thing I know is that I want my great love by my side and I want to write and work to build the arts. I just don’t know how to make it happen. Every effort I’ve made, I’ve bungled. So I read quotes…and in light of my current situation after receiving an unjustified threat, two really resonated.

The first quote is one from Emerson, “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” I put that in my collection nine years ago when I was still in high school. It wasn’t until now, I think, that I truly understood it. I spent most of the last few days worrying: if this person is trying to hurt me, and if I lose everything, every relationship I’ve cultivated, every bit of my hard work, I am the one that has to rebuild from the ground up, by myself. And with no great beacon of hope; my dream has be extinguished, but I cannot forget that self-reliance is a liberating thing.

A friend told me once that I can’t do it alone, but it seems that every person that tries to help, ultimately gets in the way. There’s only one person I’ve met in my life that I ever felt just wanted to help because he believed in my talent (and that was only very recently). Everyone else wanted something from me in return, or wanted something from the friend who put me in contact with them. No one has pure motives any more. And it can lead to some dangerous situations if you play with it or if you trip up. (I learned the hard way on someone’s else fire play.) So I’ve been stressing…but then I read that quote and thought “why?” Everything that I accomplished I’ve done on my own prior to this, I’ll be OK. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself,” and nothing can bring you happiness but yourself in the end either.

Which points me to the part where compassion replaced my anger. Feeling abandoned and honestly frightened, I confided in a few friends and thought of Robert Louis Stevenson, “So long as we love, we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.” I am lucky to be loved, and I’ve been blessed with some truly inspiring friendships-people that I can share things without judgment. Women that I can tell the worst too, and they’ll know it’s not who I am. And they can do the same with me. I’ve never judged anyone, and have always felt that people have a great capacity for change. I’m the one that gives never ending chances, a constant hopeful. Most of my friends share my open mindedness and it becomes the well spring from which you drink; the rock on which you stand. I’ve had to build new bonds like this over the last seven months, but I did it, with faith and trust that my loyalty is everlasting. My friends where the ones to help put the puzzle together with me, the ones who knew that there was something deeper going and that I shouldn’t be scared by something so baseless.

But what if you don’t have that?  What if you’re lost, with no true friends?  What if it’s not YOU they like, but something else? That has to make you feel, like Stevenson said, useless. And I don’t believe that about anyone, not even the people that do bad things intentionally. The ones that bully and TRY to hurt people because they can. Insecurity and loneliness can strike anyone at anytime, and it must be met with compassion, even if it is the mouse that commiserates the lion.