Once

What do you do
when you spend
YOUR WHOLE LIFE
trying to
please your father,
make your mother proud,
be a supportive, protective, generous sibling,
serve as a kind, loving, thoughtful grandchild,
operate as a steadfast, reliable, dependable friend,
achieve the status of "gold standard" as a
model citizen, good person, shining star, and friend to all,
put everyone ELSE before yourself,
do unto others as you would have them do unto you,
and FORSAKE YOURSELF
in order to make everyone ELSE
feel good about you,

but you're still not "good enough"?

What do you do when you've given
YOUR WHOLE LIFE
over to other people to
critique, disapprove, discount,
gossip, slander, discriminate, and

DECIMATE

but, like vampires, they are never satisfied?

Your blood sacrifice is never enough.

What if -- after nearly 40 years of sacrificing
YOUR LIFE on the altar of THEIR approval (or lack thereof) --
you decide to remove yourself from their altar,
WALK AWAY
and begin to learn how to live
the life that was given to YOU
to live
once?