All done? How easy was it for you to come up with them? When my therapist asked me to do this as a sort of homework assignment I attempted to do it in my head on the train home. I named three immediately, and then struggled to identify a fourth. It wasn't until I sat down at the computer the next day and tried writing them out that I came up with more. I still can't think of a tenth. But the nine I wrote down were good ones and I got a lot out of the process, including an insight that made me really, really happy.

See, the first things I thought of were getting accepted into Music School in 1976, passing Algebra last fall, and winning DUFF (being chosen by my peer group to represent them abroad) in 1987. Then I got stuck for a while. Meeting and marrying John, it finally occured to me, counted as a success story considering we've been happy together for 17 years. And there I languished until I tried to get away from what others would consider a great triumph, after which I produced five more examples in short order. It was fun to think about each success since I naturally felt pretty good about them. I tried to find a theme among the successes while I was remembering how wonderful each instance felt. Why? Because there's always a theme to your life, a series of patterns in decision making or choices, and it's often hard to spot it while you're living it.

What occured to me as I looked over the list was here was a person who was willing to confront and change bad habits, and who refused to give up on something she wanted despite failing miserably or being terrified of rejection. The person who went back to college twice, who pursued a job she'd been turned down for by sending flowers to the interviewing manager and getting hired after all, who never allowed her profound unhappiness at living in a place she hated affect her marriage -- that person was not a quitter or a lazy, self-pitying crybaby. Those are criticisms I've believed for years when I'm mad at myself, but no more. For the first time I saw myself as someone who was tenacious and determined, who was not deterred by defeat, who refused to take no for an answer if it wasn't right or fair. I saw the type of person I've always admired because I thought it was the opposite of myself: brave, strong, smart, resilient. I discovered irrefutable evidence that I have turned myself into the person I always wanted to be.

Man, how great is that?

Of course, when I told my best friend Denise this her response was, "Well, duh. Everyone knows you don't tell Lucy she can't do something and expect her to lay down and take it!" That made me laugh, but listen, I didn't know that about myself until I saw it laid out in a list. Seriously, try doing it yourself.

As before, I'm getting a tremendous amount out of therapy. My general goal is to achieve a sense of purpose in life, and you can make fun of me if you want but that's really what's behind all those panic attacks. In order to discover my purpose I have to know myself well. I thought I did, but clearly I carry around some old, outdated information. I suppose most people buy into the erroneous idea that once you reach 21 or so you're a grown up and you stay that way in a kind of homeostasis until you die. I'm finding out that's wrong, and I need to revise some of my touchstone ideas.

It's an interesting process. I'll keep you updated. And I'm working on my theme song.

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