Tonight I got home from spending a weekend with my son on a college audition trip. It was a bittersweet weekend. I am so proud of him and what he is doing for himself, yet I see him yanking and pulling to get away. It is bad enough to feel abandonment from your life partner, but to add the fact that soon your first born will be running out the door is like lighting the fuse on the powder keg.

I fear being alone.

There you have it.

That one flaw in my character is what has led me through a life of accepting the worse that others give because I don't want to be alone. Even now, I'm clinging to a hope that is slim to non-existent that my husband will change his heart and change the things in his own emotional wiring that is causing all this grief. Now, I have a son that despite his love for us both, can't wait to get away from us. The stress and chaos of living with too unhealthy parents has taken its toll on him and all he wants is to get out.

So what do you do when you realize what the fear is, but can't seem to master it?

I have been told over and over that "I need to be my own best friend." That's simple enough it seems, and intellectually that would be fine, except the heart has nothing to do with intellect. Feelings master intellect more then we all like to admit. That is why a person that can master himself can master anything.

I am a determined and stubborn person. I often joke that I am an over-achiever, but the one area of what I do that I can't seem to achieve in is mastering this one fear of being alone. Being abandoned and worse, thinking that no one can or would love me holds me back from fully seeing my true worth and talent.

Tonight I listened to Defying Gravity from the Broadway musical Wicked.

I want to "defy gravity."

I want to love and be my own best friend.

I know what I want. I know what is in the way. Now I just have to take the leaps of faith that I need to achieve it. This is one time, being an over-achiever is truly a wonderful thing.