Hey Everyone,

There was a time before al-anon that in order to cope with life and all of the alcoholic's problems I had taught myself to not feel anything. I was walking around numb inside because I was tired of feeling hurt. Over my time in Al-Anon, I have learned that it's ok and even necessary to feel.

Today I was watching the cartoon 'The Simpsons' (I'll assume you are all familiar with it, but if you're not it's a popular American cartoon that goes through the trials and tribulations of a dysfunctional family of 5.)

Now the father, Homer, is an alcoholic but that has nothing to do with what happened in the episode. It was the episode in which the family rents a cottage for a week in the summer. The daughter Lisa is a bookworm and feels like an outcast in the family and feels she has a hard time making friends. She decides that because they're in a new town, she will change her image. She buys new clothes and adopts a new lax attitude. She meets some locals and befriends them. Her brother Bart, is jealous and mean and tries to sabotage her new friendships by showing them all her yearbook, and the fact that noone signed it. It shows pictures of her at the grammar rodeo, and the french club and other stereotypical nerd activities. Her new friends look shocked and Lisa leaves the scene crying :(

Well, she comes home to find her friends in the dark with glue and spray paint. She decalres 'whatever prank you're going to pull, just finish it up and send me a photo, i'm going to bed'. They turn on the lights only to see that they wrote a bunch of nice things like 'Lisa rules' and 'Lisa is awesome'. They also signed all the pages in her yearbook. That's when without notice really, the tears starting coming down lol :). Before Al-Anon, that wouldn't have happened.

The point is that Lisa's friends didn't care where she came from. They only cared about who she was as a person. In the past I have felt like I had a huge secret to hide and if anyone found out, they'd hate me and hold it against me. Only small people not worth befriending fall into that category.

I wanted to share.

Wow you described this so well!

What a great lesson too, huh?

I am always impressed by people who embrace their uniqueness. I was always told i was crazy, too emotional. Well how does one figure out what to do with that?

Found myself more and more with animals.

then in        1995 got my first computer. OMGOSH there are people out there that think just like me! People who fight for animals, who don't mind a pig in the house, who won't leave a stray dog or cat out there to die or be injured.

I saw people who got together who also thought the same, shared the same interests.

Now I completely embrace who i am, how I think. I like not thinking like everyone else, doing like everyone else.

Right now I have two silkie chickens walking around in here talking. Now if they were parrots no one would think a thing about it.

My goat comes in, he goes to the door to ge let out.

I am so pleased with what you shared. Loving who we are is so important,especially when we have an A diseases tearing us down.

I love saying, "Let your freak flag fly!"  hugs,debilyn