In fewer than 24 hours, I'll be in Dallas, awaiting the start of the Psych-K conference. I'm very clear what I'm taking up there to be revealed and unraveled; I just hope that the discussion and environment is adequate to the task. I'm going to focus tonight on what it is that I intend to accomplish while there, and how much of it hinges on how I see myself, how I treat myself, and how I invite others to treat me.

There are several major groups of how this all relates:

Being ditched by my family at the age of five when we moved (which was my interpretation at the time based on what happened; I wasn't actually abandoned)
Being thrown out of the family from 1988 to 2004
Being thrown out of Landmark Education in 1997
Being thrown out of the Country Playhouse in 2002
Being thrown out of UCRS two weeks ago

And

Falling for str8, especially married men over and over
Only having an interest in unavailable men
Having a succession of broken boys that I have hosted in my home since 1982

And

Since law school, only working in industries in which I can end up earning nothing when a file or matter falls apart through no direct fault of my own
Only working on projects that, although well thought out and conceived, don't make any money or are ill-timed

And

Never taking care of myself, physically or .. well, physically, since I left law school

All of this circles back around to my fundamental complaint I raised in my first practitioner session back in 1997 - "nothing works out for me."

"Nothing works out for me," as in "it falls apart through circumstances out of my control."

I know that I have to focus on other things, other enthusiasms, other elements of life to accomplish what I think is the only acceptable level of performance for myself. The change may end up being only subtle, or it may end up being huge. I can't say.

The path that I have walked since 1982 doesn't work anymore. It doesn't even work for a few days or weeks now. The time is neigh to have it all be different, and that starts with my definition of self.

I was only called on to express that definition of self a few weeks ago in a conversation I had with JPO. It was horrible; I couldn't lie to him and tell him some answer that was false. I had to say what I really thought, and it was .. awful. I tried, even, to run away and not answer.

That's what has to be addressed and changed. I hope that I can manage it., or this will end up being a wasted life.