do you know how lucky you are?
february 17th, 2000

when i was in kindergarden, i listened to a great many of the theme albums 
from various cartoon shows, such as rainbow brite, strawberry shortcake, 
and the care bears. one of these albums was "the care bears birthday bop," 
and one of the songs on this album was entitled "do you know how lucky you 
are?" it always stuck with me - for some reason, it has always been a 
great deal easier for me to remember the lyrics to songs i listened to 
many, many years ago than to try to memorize the periodic table of 
elements or to be able to link capital cities with their respective 
states. sometimes i feel as if my memory was simply a lot keener back 
then; i could pick up on things, easier. the little bit of spanish i 
learned in the second and third grades are the only bits of spanish i have 
retained, my two years spent in high school acquiring merely the phrase 
"el gato es queso." "do you know how lucky you are" is running through my 
head at the moment, my sleep-deprived brain which needs to be finding rest 
on a pillow fairly soon, but which wanted to take a moment to reflect (so 
here's a mirror.)

so often in this journal i tend to rant, to rave, to go off on endless 
tirades about how messed up in the head i am and how there's is so much in 
my brain and in my mind that needs fixing, and how i'll end up hurting 
everyone i know, and just endless rants of all of the things that bother, 
confuse, confound, and otherwise distress me about myself. and yes, it is 
important for a person to recognize and accept their shortcomings, but 
they should not become blinded to those things that make them unique and 
wonderful, those strong points about their individual personality and 
those aspects which make them a very lucky person, indeed - in short, 
those ways in which i find myself extremely lucky.

someone very close to me was sexually abused as a child. i won't reveal 
her identity, as while i feel completely comfortable opening up my own 
life for the entire world to view at will, i don't feel very comfortable 
in describing someone else's demons to complete and total strangers. (this 
is part of the reason i've decided not to describe my past relationships 
in utter detail - it simply isn't fair to them.) at any rate, she is going 
through therapy at the moment, and so these issues are fresh on her mind, 
and all of the darkness she's been trying to ignore for so long comes 
bubbling up at the surface and, therefore, impossible to ignore. she is 
discovering so much about herself, most of it not pleasant, and she is 
discovering just how much these events have scarred her, making her 
totally incapable of having a close and intimate relationship with anyone. 
she's spent so much of her life making the wrong decisions, being with the 
wrong people, and pushing the right people completely out of her life. she 
looked at me tonight and told me how lucky i was, and how i needed to 
truly appreciate my life, to love every minute of it, because there is so 
much i can do that she can not, that i have so many opportunities that one 
out of every three women in the united states don't feel as if they really 
have. that i have the potential to, one day, when i meet the right person, 
have a wonderful and healthy relationship, and have a wonderful and 
healthy family, and raise my daughter without fear that she will be 
unintentionally scarred by any of the abuse i might have sufferred. she 
wished she could be walking in my shoes, or at least that she could live 
her life over again, knowing what she knows now. and i felt ashamed, 
totally and utterly ashamed, that i had spent so much of my time and 
energy these past couple of months focusing on the negative aspects of my 
personality and not fully taking advantage of the great gift i've been 
given, a life relatively devoid of errors, a clean slate, where i can 
wander out into the universe with very little baggage, hold my head high, 
and feel secure, or at least more secure than many others. i'm one of the 
lucky ones - shouldn't i be spending my time doing what i've been doing 
tonight, that is helping others, rather than wallowing in seas of my own 
personal stupidity and self-pity, hanging onto the ocean of my past as the 
salt slips through my hands? ridiculous. i have so much potential to help 
those who need it, to be a listening ear and a loving arm, which is what i 
am, usually, to many of my friends, but i haven't been much of lately.

i mean, i do have problems. for some reason, i have a rather low 
self-esteem, but there are many worse. i'm fairly satisfied with my body 
and overall appearance (i'm even determined to set a new fad called 
"voluptuousness" which celebrates round curves and wider figures, since my 
frame has been so altered by childbirth) and i am very happy with my 
creativity. it's my intelligence that concerns me - i always feel as if i 
am lacking in that category, and i have no idea why. when i was very 
young, i was totally arrogant about my intelligence. i would go around 
school broadcasting my IQ score to the world. i would gloat over good 
grades. but somewhere, something went terribly wrong. i mean, i know i'm 
smart, but for some reason i can't convince myself that i am a very 
intelligent young woman. but i am getting better. and this, along with my 
tendency to cling to relationships for support and identity, are really 
the only major problems with my personality. and as i can identify them, 
and am working with them, i'm already a lot further along than most.

i suppose sometimes you just need a good figurative kick in the head to 
set your introspective vision straight.

on a totally different subject, could anyone better-versed in the art of 
html code than i explain to me why this page falls apart on netscape, and 
what i might do to rectify that? the original incarnation of the journal 
looks fine in netscape, and it is the same exact code, to my knowlege. 
does it have something to do with diaryland working with templates? 
anyway, if anyone has an answer to this, please email me.

in other diaryland news, or something of the sort, i just want to make a 
plug for michelle's diary. i've found quite a few interesting, beautiful, 
and absolutely magnificent diaries on my few little wanderings, but for 
some reason michelle's just really speaks to me. perhaps it's because 
she's in college and reminds me of all of the wonderful friends i miss so 
much. but she's funny and interesting, and if you haven't read her 
already, you really should. ;)

i can't believe i've started shameless advertising in my journal. *sigh* 
there's no hope for me now.