kara,

i love you. you are one of the best friends i've ever had. and your family is so generous to my daughter and i. i know i already told you, but your self-destructive behavior really worries me. i know you are lonely, and i know you have low self esteem, and i know how much you want to have a boyfriend. but if you continue the pattern you are in, you will never find the right guy. you will never get the respect you should have. i can't say you deserve, because if you screw a guy on your first date, after telling him you are not going to touch him until he proves to you the rumors stating he has herpes are not true, then he will not respect you, why should he, after you disrespected yourself? i don't know what to say to you, to get you to see what you are, compared to what you could be. i know your family tells you constantly what you are, & its almost like you try to live up to their expectations. they are wrong for doing it. they should be trying to help you to stop the destructive behavior. but maybe they tried when you were younger, & gave up because you didn't listen. i'm not going to give up. i'm not going to take it easy on you when you tell me stories like the one last night, but i'm not going to rub your face in it. i know you and i are very different, but i know you want the same things i am holding out for, and maybe if i keep repeating myself enough, you will see that you do deserve to be happy, you deserve to get what you want out of life, & you are capable of breaking old bad habits. we all slip, we all make mistakes (look at my new years eve incident), but the thing about mistakes is that we are supposed to learn from them and try not to repeat them. i know where you want to get to, because i want to get to the same place. i think thats one of the reasons we get along so well. we both want the same things. but you have to tell yourself that you are better than this, that you deserve better than this. and you have to stick to your word. and i truly believe that when you do that, you will find what you've been looking for. you are beautiful, generous, funny, very intelligent, and a great mom. anyone would be lucky to have you. but you need to believe it for yourself.