Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I know you're right about love (that it's supposed to help us get through our times of weakness and help us to accept others, flaws and all), but I had a rather twisted definition impressed on my brain at an early age ("Love" = judgment, criticism, intolerance of my flaws, impatience with my weakness, and an invitation to others to kick me in the teeth when I'm down), so you can see why -- sick though it is -- I have this deap-seated conviction that if you're going to step in the boxing ring called "Love", you'd better be in tip-top shape and prepared to dodge or withstand all those punches coming your way.

In my experience with my parents, and with a few too many other relationships, if someone said they loved me, it meant that I had an obligation to conform to their wants and expectations. I think that's one of the reasons I decided at such an early age that it was much safer to simply try to be "liked" on a fairly superficial level, and leave it at that. But superficial liking just reinforces the masks that I wear to hide the real me, and so it all turns into a big, messy, vicious circle.

Except for little moments when grace manages to get a word in edgewise or open the windows a crack and give me a glimpse of better possibilities for life in this world.