Today has been a difficult emotional day.

[merrylander]

I hate to sound as if I am delivering a sermon here but this is summat I did learn from life, albeit rather later on. The commandment love thy neighbour as thyself finally registered. You cannot love others if you don't love yourself. I am not speaking of blind love but true love, a love that can see faults but that concentrates on virtues. I am probably my own worst critic but I now recognize that I also do have virtues, that I am worthy of being loved. That also enables me to work on my faults, to erase them or lessen them. In my first marriage we were both too young and in our hearts we, neither of us, really loved ourselves. Some lines from William Congreve can describe such a situation.

“Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorned.”

Fortunately I have learned that I can truly love myself and because of that can love others.
Offered in a spirit of friendship.