I think it's important to remember (we gray-hairs) that it's only from living through much struggle of the magnitude Hess describes that we've gotten to a place where we can do two valuable things extremely well:

1. Remind people that relaxing is sometimes even more important than struggling

2. Stay relaxed while someone has the rant, venting, and rage that naturally follow being reminded to relax. :~*)

I have saluted our Hesperis from the start for being clear that she needed a safe place to rant-- the first threads on this run of "how's-Hesperis-doing" were titled as "need to rant" after all. You go, girl!

I trust her to keep ranting and to keep continuing to think for herself, post-rant, creatively and relaxedly. We might not get to hear about that part, but that's part of the invisible process that leads to "instant success."

Geeze, a girl's got a right to rant!

So Hess, keep telling us how it all feels-- maybe the amount of advice offered has made the threads less than fully safe to do that, so PMs might work better.

The fact that we know, from our great, aged vantage point, that it will all turn out just fine, does not mean your friends don't notice or care how awful this part is (and, to be honest, probably will be for some time).

love,

~Susan