oh PLEASE pick me.

If today had a theme it would be the raw, ugly, but completely honest validation. It has once again showed its unwanted face in my life. I have made a shrine for that stupid word and worshiped it like no other concept to date. I could go back to younger years and count incident after incident where I sought approval from someone, something, anything. And today was no different. Crying, I called friends for comfort, support, and advice. Sometimes I just felt like I wanted someone to say, "You're right to feel that way." I'm still reading A Complaint Free World in which the author tells us over and over to avoid the deadly traps of complaining, and what to do when people around us complain, how to get around it. When we complain, at times, we are seeking importance and significance. It's like the quenching answer for a bruised ego. And boy do I ever have a bruised ego. It's as if in the past three months someone has taken what I was and stepped on it, left it to soak in the soggy mud, and then laid it on scorching rocks and thrown me off a cliff to fall indefinitely and seemingly forever into nothingness. Vulnerable is such an understatement.

Then why do you care if anyone reads this? Why do you post it on facebook? Honestly, truly, I don't care if another person thinks anything more or less of me from reading this. I only hope that something I say is of some help to someone, something, anything. If one sentence I wrote shook hands with the inner you and made you smile or realize something you've been searching for, then great! That's why I'm here. I figured out a long time ago that I was created to help; it's the best good I can amount to.

It feels good to say this, but to someone I never know, that I will never meet, thank you Shakira. Your music, attitude, and passion has drawn up a fire inside of me that has doubted myself for far too long.

A second, but most hearty, thanks to my friends and family for consistently giving me arms to fall back in. The fall is scary, but it's a reality.

Fall hard and land soft, beautiful,
Saira

PS: It's never too late to learn to dance. I think I'm going to teach myself a style I have desperately needed to hone and fine tune.