ang, that's so true. People who appear perfect are often hiding something much more troubling than the average messed up person has ever dealt with. Thanks for reading and commenting! 

Mark, I'm really glad you asked about that. Ideally, I'd like to make sense the first time around, but when I don't, I really like to have people follow up with a question. My life theme, I guess you could call it, is something like this: Even the messiest messes we can get ourselves into have the *potential* to be made into something beautiful. To me, that doesn't just mean that we can survive something really difficult and move on, leaving it behind. It means the very mess can be redeemed and made into something more rich and meaningful. When I say the messes "save us, in the end," I'm saying that sometimes we need to reach a sort of rock-bottom place in order to find the escape hatch to something new and better. (For more on that theme, I think I wrote about some of these ideas in my election eve post in Nov.) 

Julia, welcome to my blog! I'm glad you're planning to stick around. :) I'm also glad I was able to give all of you a glimpse of who Mary is, even if I can't coordinate personal introductions.

Alli, yes, she is! 

Betty, thanks for reading and for letting me know you like what you've read so far.