"people don't change. they just become more of themselves."

Actually, Martin, I think that statement describes perfectly what happens. I know I did use the word "change" in my post, and I said that looking at my life 15 years ago was like looking at somebody else's life, but although it seems like change, the process is really one of self-actualization - of discovering who you really are, and of letting your life be an expression of that.

Even in the early days when I said I wanted to be happy, and I did not feel happy at the time, I knew that I had it in me - I just didn't know how to get there. I can see now that the answer lay in becoming more of myself. When I said "my life is my own" in my previous post, I think that is the key. As well as being able to enjoy the moment and being very comfortable with how things are now, I'm finding a lot of freedom in being able to be myself and not worry what other people think - that seemed to come with learning to love myself and accept myself as I am. My friends seem to be mostly happy with who I am too, which is nice.

There were a few people in my life who seem determined to misunderstand, find fault, or try to change me, and some of them in the past were so-called "friends" or "lovers". I realize better now that they were probably people unhappy with their own lives, who were bound to repeat those patterns with many others, not just me. It said more about them than me. I'm not saying I'll never be hurt by people like this again, but I'm learning and finding it much easier to let go of them than I once would have.

Here's another quote, by Fritz Perls, which sorta says it all:

"Nothing changes until it becomes what it is."

Jenny