A day at work finds me feeling a bit better thinking that the inspectors are done going through stuff in my department. Their inspection, while it carries the sort of paranoia felt by management which of course trickles down to the ordinary worker (like me!) , had me 'prep'ing up as well since i was supposed to be the one running the machines when they come. Ordinarily, i wouldn't care about what the company thinks; however, I have come to build relationships with my coworkers and the floor supervisors that I felt I needed to be there to carry my load as well. At least now that it's done, I can go about my business again and take care of thinks that deserves caring.

During lunch, I was asking my coworker if she has ever been depressed. She said quite promptly, "what do you mean? of course! back when I was 13, I felt that I did not matter. I wanted to kill myself. people around me were being mean to me about my complexion that it was hard to go through every day." Then I asked her how she got over it and she replied, "I'm not sure. I guess it was because of my grandma, and how she told me that she loved me everyday, and that in fact, I did matter for her." Then she added, "nowadays, I am a lot happier, because I do not depend on others to make me happy."

After work, the words of the E-heads song Hard To Believe continue to reverberate in my head:

..."It's so hard to believe when everything you see is different from the things that you've been told."

It never fails. Realizations of truth always bring about a sort of fresh feeling that normally comes at birth. A brand new day. An open-wide horizon. For some time now, I have meant to post a poem I found off of the internet archives. It is a popular poem, at least in parts. But when I read the whole thing in its entirety, it came to me with a new meaning, something of a discovery of a certain truth that has always been evading me for some time before. Nowadays it makes more sense, and hopefully it does to whoever reads it as well. So here it goes... (don't mind the title... it's quite deceiving! :)

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LOVE
by Roy Croft

I love you,

Not only for what you are,

But for what I am

When I am with you.

I love you,

Not only for what

You have made of yourself,

But for what

You are making of me.

I love you

For the part of me

That you bring out;

I love you

For putting your hand

Into my heaped-up heart

And passing over

All the foolish, weak things

That you can't help

Dimly seeing there,

And for drawing out

Into the light

All the beautiful belongings

That no one else had looked

Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you

Are helping me to make

Of the lumber of my life

Not a tavern

But a temple;

Out of the works

Of my every day

Not a reproach

But a song.

I love you

Because you have done

More than any creed

Could have done

To make me good,

And more than any fate

Could have done

To make me happy.

You have done it

Without a touch,

Without a word,

Without a sign.

You have done it

By being yourself.

Perhaps that is what

Being a friend means,

After all.

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...I've been thinking lately, and I wonder ---really, is there any other basis for love other than this?