I read, a few days too late, Hamilton Nolan’s piece in Gawker, reminding the world that Journalism is Not Narcissism, thanks to Amanda Marcotte’s takedown of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s latest essay.

Ouch. So let me clarify. Or call a mulligan. Request a do-over. Whatever.

Consider “choosing balance,” my first attempt at Shapiro’s humiliation essay exercise. Here’s the bottom line–or the short little post I could have written, not to humiliate myself but to assert myself as a person who knows what the hell I’m talking about when it comes to relationships and a good marriage:

I have a great life with a great man because I learned, repeatedly, what another life with the wrong man might have looked like. I know what it feels like to be respected by another, because I know what it’s like not to be. I had options. I chose well. I was tired of being a fool.

Despicably boring, I know. Maybe the details I provided earlier support that statement above. I hope so. All I want to do is make a point, nicely and cleanly. And maybe encourage you to think about your own life.

Relate. Reflect. That’s all I want: to be a certain kind of mirror.