WHEN BEST DEFENSE LOSES!

You think Kentucky has a great 4th quarter defense?  That's nothing compared to mine!  I grew up honing my defense from an early experience with nuns.  It was your basic "I'm not responsible for anything" strategy.  Primal yet effective.  Later, I developed an aptitude for minimizing any difficult feeling that I was having by intellectualizing and understating its painful impact on me.  This is one that takes years of practice but that you should definitely keep in your arsenal.

Later still, as a grown man, I rose to the top leagues with clever repartee and witty humor, two of the best responses that can help you avoid feeling vulnerable, dropping into those nasty "tenderer" places, and still appear to look human.  John Wayne would've been proud!

In relationships, it gets trickier.  Especially when your partner wants you to get all touchy-feely and drop all those hard-earned defenses.  I suppose the definition of "intimacy" is something close to "no defenses".  Whew, that calls for the big guns - it's best to just go quiet and try like hell not to feel that longing ache in the pit of your stomach.

Oh, how these first-rate defenses have served me well.   Then why sometimes, at 2 in the morning when I wake and think about my day, do I feel so alone?

_______________________________________________________

As you walk through your next few weeks, Be aware of the way you might tighten, minimize, deny your feelings.  After all, these are the indicators that you are truly alive,  You don't want to visit Earth and walk around half asleep.  'Til next month - Steve