every day i struggle with my social/family group's opinions about my relationship. i have to actively not listen to all the ways they've decided i am wrong and that my love is wrong and that "it will never work."

i just wanted to thank both bellis and lucretia for helping my to shore up my slightly wavering confidence in myself, my decisions, and my small insular family unit. thank you for reminding me that you have to make your own happiness, even if it flies in the face of those around you who believe your happiness is not the measurement you should live by.

bellis: "What I mean to say (long story short, too late) is that in the end, you have to make your own way, you've got to build from the ground up. You have to go with your gut. Or at least, I do. I can't do it the everyday way and feel good aobut it, or me; I need to be making things, making out up anything, I need to feel like we found this path, this place, ourselves. I guess I'm just not happy with a life that feels like somebody's seconds."

amen.