It’s difficult for me sometimes to understand that the perceived unfairness of life doesn’t mean that I am somehow defective. That what so many of my friends have and I don’t doesn’t mean I’m less fit to belong.

I have some things that many of my friends don’t have. I often forget that I have a very great deal to be thankful for.

But life shouldn’t be about what others have and I don’t, or what I have that others don’t. Life isn’t a competition. I just don’t want to be left behind.

I finally am beginning to have an actual relationship with God again. At this point God is acting for me sort of like a nicotine patch does for a chronic smoker. He takes the edge off. He helps me deal with my occasional feelings of despair and loneliness so I can bear it. As much as my friends mean to me and as much as they help me, there are some things that can’t do for me. And that’s why I turned to God in the first place.

Life goes on. I make a lot of things harder than they need to be. I take a lot of things more personally than they are. But that’s part of who I am. Learning to cope and improve myself without becoming numb has been a lifelong struggle for me.