Folks... I started to write an e-mail to someone and when I finished.  I realized this is something I can't just write to one person.

When I was a kid of 18, I had a some good friends.  These guys always knew me to be ONE unique character.  They grew to appreciate my odd interest in spies and detectives.   Then one day a buddy of mine came to me and said, I saw a play last night and I figured you want to see it.  I asked him what it was.  He said, it was a story called, Who Am I This Time? about an actor that everyone kept coming to, to play new parts.  He came to realize his lot and would simply respond with, “Who am I this time?”

Now… before you say, “Come on Lars, a friend of yours didn’t really do that did he?”  I can tell you his name was xxx xxxxx .  I remember it like it was yesterday.  We talked and I came to learn that xxx xxxxx was expressing to me what my other friends thought.  It was that I was able to be anyone for the sake of friends.

I’ve come to accept that in my life.

You see xxxxxxx, for the sake of friends sometimes I forget who I am – what it is I want – what my needs are.

I’ve said sorry in arguments when I knew I wasn’t wrong; simply because I knew the person I was at odds with would never say they were sorry.  They were so stubborn (no I’m not speaking of you) that I knew if either of us were to mend broken fences I’d have to take the first step.

I’ve pretended to have been a mean person in order to allow someone else to move on and give them closure.

I’ve gone weeks without crying when I knew that all I’d ever have to do was shed one tear and I could move on, but if I did, I knew I’d never look back.

I’ve risked my own personal health and brought enemies together so that others could get by them and lead happier lives.

I’ve sacrificed my own happiness when I knew that if I had my own way, it would cause others to be sad and hurt.

I've always been the last to say goodbye when I knew that I should be the first to say the hardest words.

And now again, I'm living through a time that requires me to try and make someone else happy by living by 'their' rules.  With an uneasy peace and healthy resign I look in the mirror and say, "Who am I this time?" Only to think that for once in my life, shouldn't I just do what is right for me.  Being myself is what I want most and having denied myself my own desires has made me someone else that for once, I'm unable to accept being.

I can't tell you how this ends as this story has yet to write it's own ending.   What I can tell you is that I'm done asking myself, "Who am I this time?"

You all know that almost every time I write an article there is a moral to the story.  Well, this one wasn't meant to have a moral, but there is one.   So if the person I wrote this to figures out this is to them, here is the moral.  "Be careful what you ask for. You may get it."  

And now -- the hardest words I know  "I love you, goodbye."