I've moved!

To a new, private, women-only blog. (Sorry men, I just need a little estrogen time.)

If you'd like access, just email me or leave a comment here and I will invite you. It'd be wonderful to have you.

Ciao!
Leslie

I'm thinking about

leaving this and starting a new blog for the same reason Miss Em is. My life is so chaotic, so dramatic, and oftentimes ridiculous...I need a blog where I can be intensely personal under the security of those who I know will love me and not judge me.

I wonder if you can set up a blog where you have to be invited to view it? Perhaps if you, my dear friend, want to continue to read up on my life, just let me know and I'll email you the link.

Love, Les.

Has it really been that long?

For my own sanity, I will not write about my struggles over the past few weeks. I will be brave.

Today, my bestfriend from college, Mark, is driving from Chicago to spend the weekend with me. He has graduated from training and is now a full-fledged helicopter pilot for the army. In May, he will be shipped to Iraq to fight a war that has been far from me until now.

I am nervous; it's been a year and a half since we've seen each other. A lot has happened in a year and a half. We've both changed. I wonder if we'll be able to adjust.

But I'm going to be brave. When I go home, I'm going to say hello to Maxi as usual and tidy up the place. Then when he comes I'm going to hug him so tightly, it would make any military man nervous.

Because great friends are hard to come by. And I want him to know that I know. And that makes me brave.

The things geeks do.

Saturday I traveled to the Ohio Renaissance Festival with Jason and my friend Josh. If you've ever been to a ren fest, you know that its unofficial title is 'Where geeks, nerds, and dorks' come out to play. Scores of people, from teens to elderly, dressed in costumes that cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Robes, bustles, capes, mail, boots, swords, axes, and corsets. Men in tight tights and women with bulging, bouncing breasts. Knights, queens, peasants, and jesters. Poor English accents, cheesy jokes, and staged acting. With my Aeropostale jacket, Josh's popped collar, and Jason's 'Beer all you can beer' T-shirt, it wasn't long before we realized that we were the outcasts.

We enjoyed every minute of it.

At one point we were watching the jousting and, being as vertically challenged as I am, was hopping like a fish out of water to catch the action. Jason and Josh took turns hoisting me on their shoulders. It was a little weird being the tall one of the crowd and looking down. But the best part was all the curioius 'Aren't you a little big to be doing that?' looks I got from little kids who were also on their parent's shoulders.

I gave them a look that said, 'You're never too big to sit on a man...or his shoulders.'

Fighting back.

Friday night, I broke down. I fought it for a long time, but the tears I had been swallowing for 2 months could no longer be repressed. My head boss had told me earlier that morning that if I didn't like the way she talked to me, that I should "suck it up" and that I had failed as a copywriter. I received no apology from her for the angst she had caused me, yet in a cruel twist of fate, spent the rest of the day trying to apologize to her.

That was the last straw, the last crashing tidal wave against a rock now split in two. After being cut down by my landlord, my roommate, and now my boss...after the deterioration of my new car and a $1100 bill...after continually weathering the sorrows of two men in love against my own lost, heavy soul...I was finished. I felt nothing but tears and emptiness.

But in the end, love still saved me. Just as I gave up, my sister called. I told her everything. She was shocked, but not at my situation. At me.

"What do you MEAN you don't know who you are, anymore?" she bellowed. "I know who you are. You're Leslie. You're my sister. And no sister of mine is going to sissy out like this!"

She continued on like that for a while...until I started talking, until I stopped crying, until I got angry, and until I rose to the challenge.

And now I'm on the other side of the line...the line of assholes, arrogant bitches, and people who will always tear me down. At one time I was facing them and letting them cut me down until I was nothing. Slowly but surely, I am walking to the other side, where I am angry, where I no longer care, where I walk proudly and leave them behind me.

I am loving, I am compassionate, and I am determined to be better.
I am justified in who I am.
And you will not stop me.
I will never treat people like you have treated me.
And you will not stop me.
I will become a greatly respected writer and pioneer in advertising.
Those who work for me will not respect me out of fear,
but out of admiration and appreciation.
And you will not stop me.
No matter what my position or how much I make,
I will always respect and engage even the smallest person.
And you will not stop me.
I will persevere and become exactly who I desire to be.
And you will never, ever stop me.