When I say women are the agents of change, I really should say women and girls.

I've always felt like a teacher. Whenever I've learned something important, my reaction has always been to tell everybody about it. I read a book, I buy 100 copies and I send them out.

I have always been with men who were type A, alpha males. I must exist because I'm with him, I'd think. But what made them what they were also often meant they were lacking empathy genes. And now I know I don't need an alpha male; I need somebody who's interesting. I'm not pretending that I'm 100 percent healed, so I might not know if a man is right for me right away, but it wouldn't take me seven years to figure it out. Maybe a month or two.

I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of the things that I said or did. I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm...very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families.

Trying to understand the fear I had of truly opening my heart - first, you have to be whole to do that. The fears, the voices in my mind saying, "Oh, you don't want to do that, you might get hurt, they might abandon you - "those are ghost voices from my mom and dad.

We need women friends, women who challenge us.

If our work is stimulating and rewarding, if it pushes us to grow...we become more valuable human beings.