The Uglies

Everybody has them.  The truths that we eat over, drink to avoid, smoke to annihilate, drug into submission.  They are our deepest, darkest, most primitive thoughts and feelings.  The ones that, if set free, will get us a pass to the outer most reaches of relationship hell. 
  And yet...and yet, if we dare, if we seek and find a squad of humans who love us so unconditionally, so fully, we may then challenge ourselves to uncover the key to the locked box that cowers in the corner of our consciousness.  The box that holds the uglies.
  In finding that squad, in releasing the uglies, I have been blessed with a new sense of freedom.  Not the kind of freedom that comes from unloading my crap.  The true freedom that accompanies allowing another trusted human into my stripped, raw, real, unmasked world.  The peace that comes with understanding from that trusted individual, and the ultimate change in DNA that allows me to do the same for someone else, is a true miracle.
  To my Reggie, Katie, Jen and Mike, thank you for not firing me.  Thanks for being a part of my God squad.  I humbly thank you for being an example of true, real love, and I hope you have experienced the same from me.