I have the best friends...you know who you are, the ones who know the reasons for my frailties and insecurities and help me focus in the calm assurity of love and support.

There is a strange sensation in personal revelations that then seem so crystal clear that you wonder how you had missed them previously. I love that I have a few dear friends who want to understand me and who celebrate those moments of clarity with me without making me feel like, "Well, yeah! Duh!"

I am a "word picture" person and concepts come more clearly to me when described in that way. I have been trying to focus on how to organize my heart (sounds like an oxymoron but in truth it is not).

So I spent the weekend thinking of my heart as a store. A little store on a picturesque side street. The street is one of those "trendy but off the beaten path" places where you have to know the area to know there are good things to be found. Maybe the rest of you have a little shop on the same street.

I am a little "boutique" on that street. A bookstore and antiquities shop. In my shop are shelves labelled with people's names. On the shelves are the volumes they have written on my heart. Some volumes are delicate and must be opened carefully and the pages turned gently. Others are more technical volumes that can only be read when I have focus and perhaps caffeine. Some are mysteries and some are drama and suspense.

Periodically, I need to go through the shop and rearrange the volumes and shelves. Who needs more space, which volumes have I integrated so much into my spirit that I can spare them for sale. Which ones have I found to be outdated or false and need to be discarded.

In the back of the shop is a display case of special items collected throughout the years. Not for sale, too precious for others to touch without express permission. A fur stole, an art deco mirrored compact, a silk beaded clutch, a fine grained wooden music box and more.

The store is precious and needs to be protected so I have had to install those metal mesh shades. I can see who needs me to open up early but I can feel safe that I do not have to do so.

Some of you come in to chat and browse while others have a shelf all their own.

If you could choose, what title would you add to your shelf?