No, I'm not schizophrenic

But I do hear voices. How many? So far, I'm sure I've heard three. Today, I'll tell you about the first two. The third is a topic for another day.

My favorite voice is the Inner Child. We get along well and we have tonnes in common. Her age changes all the time - we spent last year at 13 and right now, we think 8 is so cool! I'm not sure if it's charming or disturbing that we're so close despite our "real" age difference, but I don't care 'cause she's my best friend in the whole wide world.

Then there's the Mean Lady. Don't even ask me how she got in there! She seems to have a nose for finding fun, and when she does, she squishes it like a bug. And she's bossy. Obnoxious. She's mean and scary. It explains why it took us so long to work up the nerve to do something about her.

The thing about the Inner Child is that she's a little shy. She comes out of her shell when she thinks it's safe, but with the Mean Lady hanging around, she gets a little nervous and hides in her blanket fort like kids do on a rainy day. And when the Mean Lady yell right at her, she'll disappear for long, long stretches.

I finally got up the nerve to stand up for my little friend. I realized one day that there was no one to speak up for my helpless Inner Child, and if I didn't step up to the plate, I feared she might run away for good.

So the next time we played and the Mean Lady told us to quiet down and quit our silly games, I talked back. "Oh yeah? Why do you want us to stop?" And the Mean Lady told us how we were just wasting time, how our games weren't practical or leading us anywhere in life. "But we think it's fun!" I said. "Yeah, well fun doesn't clean the house or pay the bills!" she snarled back. We kept going back and forth, the first real argument that we'd ever had. I'd never spoken back - I had just let her make her arguments all these years and there had never been room for those of the Inner Child. As I argued back on the little one's behalf, I couldn't help but take the cause to heart - I felt it, she was right! And when I yelled out "Well we don't care what people think, if we have a lot of money or if there's dishes in the sink - we want to be happy and everything you ever say makes us sad!", that did it. She couldn't argue with our desire for happiness - she wanted it too but and no matter where she would look she never seemed to find it. Furious and defeated, she stormed out into the back yard. And that's when we did it. We locked the door.

Photos, from top to bottom: the little one made me do it; ditto - we think puddles are fun; ok, *I* drank the wine, but she posed for the picture.