Once or twice a week these days, I get nice messages from people telling me they think I am opening up or softening up, a/k/a getting nicer and more patient or tolerant.

This is a relatively new phenomenon and much more pleasant than the messages I usually get telling  me I am wrong, cruel or a mean-spirited bully.

I appreciate these new and nice messages and I hope they are true. Most of them credit Maria for this new iteration of Jon,  “I think Maria’s steady spirit has a lot to do with it,” said one message.

It sure does have a lot to do with it, although Maria is about as steady as a 7.5 earthquake, which is one of the reasons I love her. She is never the same Maria two days in a row, or even two hours in a row.

If John Wayne were around, he would have called her a “spitfire,” and threatened to spank her.

I wouldn’t ever try that, in part because she’d break my legs, also because that fire is what I most love about her.

I think of Maria as a benign but explosive Sicilian volcano. Her support of me has never been unpredictable, it has been as steady as a rock.

But I also feel I have to write a bit about this “softening,” this perceived growth and improvement of me and my psyche.

I hope it’s true, yet on behalf of the many people out there who need and want to change, I have to be honest, and say that real change, if it is true, cannot be brought by any other person.

And not even by love.

I hate unwanted advice (I haven’t done much softening on that) , but here, I am called to say: if you want to change, look within. Don’t look for anyone else to save you.

I have been changing and trying to change since I was 14.

I was in therapy for 30 years, in Freudian analysis for eight years, I saw shrinks, social workers, spiritual counselors, holistic and amateur counselors. I needed so much medication to sleep that I took valium for 30 years, no one told me it was addictive.

I had rages, obsessions, panic attacks. Dyslexia, it turned out, was the least of my problems. I was just plumb crazy.

I shudder to think how much time and money and blood and sweat  went into a life of hard work and a ferocious determination to change. I don’t regret a second of it.

Getting off the valium was quite a trip all its own.

I hope I am changing, I have always been changing, and I hope I never stop changing, that would be the first death.

Some people are surprised by change, I am not.  Why wouldn’t I change, the alternative would have been unbearable?

Change will never be done for me. No human gets to be perfect no matter how loving their partner can be.

My love and appreciation for Maria is well documented, my writing about it could fill the Great Library At Alexandria.

But no one else can change me or anyone. That would be an awful thing to put on her.

It takes hard and long and committed work to change. The only person who can change me is me, no matter who loves me or how much.

I write about this not to pat myself on the head, but because I worry that the idea of change can be oversimplified and people in pain can get the wrong impression. Change is like a good marriage, it isn’t always warm and sappy, it takes a lot of work.

Change isn’t a love story, it’s a much more complex story.

No one could get inside of me and do the grimy work that needed to be done.

Maria is the most wonderful person I know, but she is no saint or miracle worker. No one has changed more than she has, because, like me, she wanted to and worked hard at it, and still works hard at it, every day.

As much as we love and support one another, she would never say that I was the reason that she changed.

I saw- see – her work so hard, day in and day out to change and find her strength. Not once did I ever think I was the reason, that would a great disservice to her, a patronizing dismissal of her courage and strength.

Tonight, she performs with her Belly Dancing group for the first time, and I’m going to see it. I couldn’t relate how much work and struggle went into this day. I had absolutely nothing to do with it.

We all tell the stories we want to believe, and I know that most women quite understandably believe that few men can change by themselves or want to. I know how they feel. If you watch the news, it’s hard to disagree.

But the truth is. nobody can save me, and I can’t save anybody else. Most people won’t or can’t change, and once they do change, almost everyone they ever knew will soon be gone.

I can no longer be around unhealthy people, angry people, people who live in drama, people who can’t change, people who lie to themselves. Human beings don’t soften, they grow and learn.

My lifetime effort to heal and grow continues. I never had one therapy session in 30 years that was easy or painless. I hardly ever missed a session in all of those years.

A male analyst who prescribed some drugs for me said he never knew a man my age to undertake so much change.

He seemed almost sorrowful when he said that, I sensed he was doubtful I could pull it off and survive.

My last therapist was never doubtful. She was a tough and perceptive New Yorker named Peggy, she moved to Saratoga some years ago, and I believe she helped me to save my life. In our first meeting, she looked me in the eye and said I had lost all perspective.

She also told me I wasn’t married. She insisted that I never lie to myself, and I promised her and myself I never would again.

Therapy with Peggy was the hardest work I have ever done, but I was prepared for it. I asked for it. I took responsibility for it. I told her I was determined not to spend the rest of my life in this angry, delusional and loveless way.

I said I would do anything I could possibly do to change. I did change, and am still changing, “softening,” some prefer to call it, although it’s not a word I would use.

One can’t, after all is said and done, change into a another person.  I can’t be someone else, and don’t wish to be. The most I can hope for is to change for the better. I will always be me, God help all of us.

As we ended our profound work together, I tried to thank Peggy, I told her I believed she had saved my life. Peggy never put up with that kind of stuff, she was having none of it.

She said the most meaningful words that have ever been spoken to me, words that brought instant tears to my eyes.

She put her hand up that day and said, “listen, I want you to know something. I have never had a patient who worked harder than you have. Don’t ever say somebody else ‘saved you,’ you saved yourself.”

My work with Peggy marked the end of my long and very interior chapter of the hero journey. I had left the ordinary and familiar world, gone into the darkness, and returned.

I was done with therapy, Peggy sent me off, she said I was always welcome to come back, but she doubted I would. I never have.

I was different, I had changed. I felt strong enough and old enough and smart enough to take it from there, never forgetting that help helps, and is there if I need it.

And here I am, still at it. It’s not time for self-congratulations. Most mornings, I wake up understanding this trip has just begun.