Not all that wish to know the deepest or most vulnerable parts of you love you. Be open. Be free. Be careful.

It's true. Sometimes, you want more than you have. To love more deeply, be more open, to receive in kind that which you have given on every level, but it's not always returned and if we are honest, we know it won't be returned before we give it, yet we have hope and do so anyway.

Sometimes, people just want to be close enough to get whatever physical, mental or emotional fuel they can get from you and nothing more. Sometimes, the sacrifices are uneven, leaving you on the short end of the stick because you gave more than you received unknowingly. So limited is our knowledge of what we do.

Sometimes, things are just not the way you would like them to be. In those times, we have to remember that we do what we do because we are alive and human, discovering the life that has been here all along and shaping our futures as we go along. Sometimes, part of that shaping is painful because of what we don't know. I wish I could make it easier for others -- for myself -- but I can only say that we make it through after a while.

Persist.

That's what I keep reminding myself to do.