Lady,
You don't forget the most meaningful event that ever happened and especially an event that wholly changed every aspect of your life and every interaction you had with others as a result of that event.
You are the one that seems so clueless - and refuses to allow the recognition you so deeply deserve. How can you not know that you are above every GEM and even the rare Blue White Diamond does not compare to you.
You are meant to be the WATER that spurs the Gems to grow to even greater heights - and blaze with even greater intensity.
You are meant to be like a Conductor leading a Symphony and even the master violinist is nothing without your direction. You alone can tell why one is Dark in sorrow and pain and all the more why that same Gem has been transformed to something totally different -- now blazing like something similar to an Opal.
If you want to honor Maggie - the best way you could possibly do that is by allowing XL-entLady to live again. That is the REAL YOU and she is the one that OPENLY made known to everyone a 'Character' that everyone grew to love and admire. She touches people in the most wonderful way and had the deepest and endless respect of thousands.
You are the only one that can keep her hidden and not allow her to dominate your existence and all the ways you interact. If 'she' is dead or burried it is because YOU refuse to bring her to life.
Look at my life Lady. Am I letting anyone on this MB kill me? NO - because I am thrilled to shine and I am totally overjoyed with being who and what I am -- in a humble way -- and in a way that points to something far greater.
They can shut me down -- and many have taken their opportunity to tear me down and cut against the beauty I strive to make known. But look how I respond LADY - and know that I will blaze all the greater.
If there is anyone called to do that -- no one could have a greater calling than you --- but yet you keep her hidden and refuse to make her known and let us marvel in her glory. Sweet woman it is YOU who keeps her hidden - who refuses to allow her to be and remain.
Birch was right - she was the greatest of all.
So I was up for hours thinking about whether I was just going to let this go or not, getting the email opinions of people whom I respect, and I just can't walk away from this one. Because I am me. XL-entLady and Steel_Magnolia and FlippedOutFERS and Morgana and River were or are Ann. If some of their personalities were different, it is because my life was different at those times. There have been some game-changers in my life the last year or two, as you well know.
You also know that when we were talking, using the analogies of people being gems, that I told you that you are like a diamond in many ways and one of the ways is that you have an occlusion, a flaw. You have to see the facts your way, put your spin on things, rewrite history to fit your perspective.
We've heard your version of reality over and over,
ad nauseum.
Some think about a version of a life where every woman becomes a sexual object, where people are made uncomfortable by the innuendo they are reading in a story meant to honor a daughter. A version where someone tries to be your friend from her first week on the MB, and you keep introducing images like "kisses where my tongue touches your cheek, just a flick to find the taste of you" and "imagine yourself naked and surrounded by bubbles and the bubbles begin to caress....." And I'll stop there because you and I aren't the only ones reading this. I kept telling you that friends didn't act like that and that you'd better cut it out. And you'd be good for a couple of messages and then it would start in again.
And because I got messages from several different women, some of whom no longer participate in the MB, I knew that I was not the only one made uncomfortable by your imaginative writing.
That drama played out, sometimes publicly, because you
could be a good friend if you would quit objectifying women. Oops, had to strike a sentence there, because even though it was truth and even though you called me out, others reading this would be made uncomfortable by that truth.
Those are the facts. The things I know beyond doubt. The things I
wonder about are what drives a man to seek out multiple "fiancees" on the internet, when he has a wife and children at home. A home situation that, by his own words, everyone else thinks is perfect. Who puts the family through that charade of caring and then announced one day that you are leaving. To be a one-man mental health clinic. Because you are so good at radiating mental health.
Ah, I approach the line again.
So I will just say that Lady is me. A kinder, gentler me who had not yet seen the ugliness and whole-body searing pain that is near-death. Who had not yet made a major mistake, one of the worst in my long life, by reaching through a drug and bacteria addled brain to try to find a way to stay in contact with friends I cared about without embarrassing other friends I cared about. Who made the wrong decision. I was wrong, but I survived. And gentle, soft Lady became the Magnolia who has earned the Steel in her name.
Do I miss Lady? I miss her every day. I miss the respect and friendship that others showed her. I miss being the person whose friends dropped by her Account Talk to just chat and stayed to talk about whatever was on their minds. Now that was Thread Drift! <smile>
But I'm not here enough to make people feel welcome. I hurry in, share some home-baked cookies, then leave again to go to this therapy or that specialist or to my bed because the weather is changing and my body has become the world's best barometer.
Do I still see people's characteristics and equate them to gems? Oh yes. I open the MB and it is a treasure chest. But life has changed, it's hard to get to know each gem now, and you know the reason why.
That's pretty easy to happen with ME. 
- I am out to run as many miles as I can and do as many sit ups and avoid the delicious foods until I'm at least 20 lbs lighter. 
:suspicious: - and that my expressions were so distorted and crazy that anyone would be upset. 
