Castles in the Air

I have a tendency to build them. Which is NOT a good thing. I have been on this planet (at least in this form) for almost 39 years, and I have recently discovered that I am a very poor judge of character. I pick the wrong horse with a shocking degree of regularity. It is a talent that I would not recommend anyone trying to cultivate. With it comes with a lot of pain, sorrow, and a great deal of disappointment. None of this is news to anyone who knows me. Do not get me wrong, I have great, good, friends. Friends that would do anything for me. However, my friendship wagering has been rather hit or miss. I tend to hit or miss in a BIG way. The friends I have are awesome, the ones that I have missed on have left bruises on my ego and pschye that won't be going away anytime soon. The problem is that I have missed more often that a)I would like to admit and b)might have lost more than I could afford. I understand that I should shake the misses off like dust off a boot, but it appears that I am the type of fellow on which failure lingers. It clings to me like a bad odour. It is a personal failing, I sometimes miss the forest for the trees. In my younger days this was not as bad, perhaps age makes it harder to turn the other cheek to these blows of insecurity. All those friends that have gone in search of fairer weather are, for reasons I CANNOT fathom, still rankle. One by one they left leaving me here sitting in my storm wondering was that lightning that just struck? How could I have thought that horse was going to finish anything but badly? What was I thinking? Perhaps while I am pissing away all this time building my castles, I have forgotten one very important thing. A good castle has a drawbridge and a moat.