Tuesday afternoon, someone said, "You're a study in self-denial."

The woman began to weep, in spite of herself, pressing her lips together, taking her gaze toward the ceiling and away from the face of her friend.  She questioned herself aloud, "Why have I always denied myself what I want? No one has ever said that I can't have things."

Pondering her own question, she awakened from sleep the following day and realized she hadn't recently asked herself what she wanted, that it wasn't entirely true that she ALWAYS denied herself what she wanted.

 "What do I want?" She said, "I want to take a long hot shower and take the time to shave my legs.  I want to get my hair cut today and I want a new color. I want to go shopping for some new clothes. I want to bask in the sun. I want to publish my book of poems. I want to make all of our electronic devices and the computer perform perfectly all the time. I want a million dollars. "

The list went on and on like that in her head.  She managed to bask in the sun and finish the personal care stuff -- except coloring her hair, although she bought the hair color -- and she considered how to publish her own book of poems. The electronics and the million dollars would have to wait.  Self publishing would take a little more research. So she went out to dinner (which she also wanted) and celebrated her birthday with her husband who bought her a new iPhone for her birthday (another two things she wanted).

The next day she started reading the websites that offer self-publishing services. She found an open submissions invitation in email from She Writes.

She realized that even though she'd signed up for She Writes months and months ago, she'd never written a blog post.  On Friday, she wrote her first blog post. She pretty much decided she would publish her poems over the weekend and make an ebook available on Amazon and maybe Book Baby, but that would cost something. Okay. But if it's something she wants, why shouldn't she spend 99 bucks, plus, on something important to her? After all, she went shopping the other day and didn't buy a thing. There was nothing in the store that she wanted.