Baldwin spoke, knew who he was, and never allowed anyone to tell him any differently. I am not like him. He didn’t seem to need to be loved back and, in this way, he was brave. My biggest failing in this life has been my gasping need to be loved at the expense of so many other things. I have allowed others to tell me who and what I am supposed to be and, when I failed to meet their expectations, I blamed myself. This need to be loved by everyone has led me down dark roads more times than I can tell in one book—in one thousand books even—and all I have to show for it are these stories.
