And I was right. It was a good night.

Things are chagning within me at an alarming rate, and in the weirdest ways.

The way I look at things has changed so much. The way I choose to look is different. I think I am starting to feel my age a bit more than I have before. Getting married made me feel like an adult, but getting a divorce made me feel my age. I don't know if that makes any sense, but somewhere in my head it does to me, and I guess that's alright. I am finding comfort in things that I haven't felt comfort in before. I wish I wasn't being so vague, but I don't really have specifics. It's difficult to try to get specific when you feel like it's the core of your being that has shifted. There is nothing specific. I just feel like the lens I look at the world through has changed.

Or been cleaned.

Things are good. And the things that aren't good are going to get that way. Not everything is perfect and I'm not deliriously happy all hours of the day. But I do know what is around the corner, as far as my own sense of self, and that fills me with something I could never gain from another human....true happiness.

I've always heard that you have to love yourself before anyone else can love you. I have always tried to love myself and be understanding of the reasons why I do the things I do. I know they don't come from a place of evil, even if the actions aren't the best. It's always what felt right at the time.

However, there is something HUGE that I've learned....I've never loved myself. Ever. Because love involves respect. And I've neve had respect for myself. Respect enough to make decisions based on what I need to guide me on this path in life. It's always been what's right for the person or people closest to me, and how can I help to ease their load a bit. And what would happen is I would take too much on myself, get angry at that person who became enabled because I enabled them, and the relationship would end. I would resent them and push them away, and they would run to another. Because I never respected myself enough to know what it was I truly needed.

But I do now.

And in that knowing is power. There is a power that I possess that I have never felt before. Of course, I can't bend steel or look through walls, and my muscles haven't grown in huge ways (damnit), but there is a power in knowing what you will and, more importantly, won't put up with. It's something I've never felt before. And knowing that, I can see where I've always been weak. And that's pretty powerful as well.

So yeah. That's it. Things are shifting that I can't explain, and it's filling me with a feeling I can't explain, and Wednesday night was very good. I can explain that, but won't.