Notes from Nethers on independence

- "My foothold sometimes felt fragile. It wasn't only about the unpredictability of how people acted - it was something about repeatedly having to retreat from them to feel safe."

- "Oddly, I am many things opposite to what I would expect from one who spent formative years on a commune, and I am reminded of the dialectic; how one extreme breeds the other. I am private and reserved to a fault... which makes it hard for people to know me.

"I am ruthlessly disciplined, finding it no problem to regiment myself for work or pastrime. I am completely counter-dependent. It is very difficult for me to let go of a fundamental, hard-won self-sufficiency. This is problematic in that it limits my range of intimacy...

"And finally, I am crushingly over-responsible, with one glaring exception."

- Sandra Lee Eugster, Notes from Nethers