I have always been a very trusting person - eternally optimistic, hopeful and positive.  Somehow this has changed recently.  I don't know where the line between trusting and naive is drawn, between loving and oblivious, between forgiving and stupid.  I don't want to live my life jaded, pessimistic, and negative, but I do want to protect myself and my heart (being as fragile as anyone else's).  I'm not sure I know how, though.

No matter how much you love someone, care about them, trust them and cherish them, how much can one human being ever really know about another?  There are things about myself that I will never reveal to anyone else - at least no one that I have yet encountered in this "journey called life," so isn't it inevitable that things will be hidden from me?  I guess the most important thing in my mind is that I would never hide something to be dishonest or "less than honest" in a hurtful way - only in a protective way.

So do you believe in the story you're given, the supposed truths you're told?  Or do you trust your gut no matter how much you'd like to think your head can rationalize away any inconvenient instincts? And how many times do you forgive before you say enough is enough and realize that you deserve better - the very best, in fact.  I don't know.  I hope that someday I will.  Especially with the way I'm feeling right now.

I just realized that I haven't mentioned Tim yet . . . he is the wonderful man who has done all the photos I currently have on MySpace.  He studied in Milan and is a fashion designer/makeup artist/hairstylist extraordinaire!

The ones in the black dress could either be a "gothic Snow White" or an "Eve and the Apple" depiction.  The one that looks like an oil painting is a take-off of Klimt's "The Kiss" and involved many hours of extensive body painting!  And the other ones were just really fun to do . . . especially the fairy-esque/woodland creature ones.

Well, it's taken me the better part of today, but I finally managed to convert some pictures and songs into the right format to post . . . thank God! And I did it all by myself, without having to resort to begging one of my technologically-adept friends to help me . . . ok, there were a few phone calls.

My beautiful dog is sprawled next to me on the couch (Shyla - yellow lab), and I can't help thinking about just how great life is . . . complicated, difficult, challenging, sometimes messy, and never boring, but definitely and infinitely wonderful.  Now if I can only unglue my bum from this couch and avert my eyes from this glaring computer screen and go to bed, I'm sure that I will enjoy yet another day tomorrow!  And maybe a new song.

I just wish I could figure out how to send comments/messages to other people on MySpace.  Argh.