"Princess, do you wanna flap your wings and fly away from here?" --Liz Phair
Yes. Yes I do.
So much has been going on in the past few days. It's funny; I haven't gone out, haven't spent much time with friends or anything, haven't been doing anything out of the ordinary, but all this really emotional shit has sort of come crashing down on me...
...And what's so funny is that things look so normal; me moving into my new place, happily living with somebody wonderful, happily planning a neat vacation, happily playing nice music and watching TV... For gahd's sake, yesterday I cooked a meal (a meal that involved a RECIPE) for myself and Norman and we sat together on our porch eating and smoking and watching our nice quiet street on a nice quiet Sunday, and nothing in the entire world could have been more normal and secure and peaceful, and nobody would ever know the damned difference unless I happened to mention that not all is completely well...
...All is not completely well.
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[BEGIN CHAOTICALLY FRUSTRATED RANT HERE:]
I really do consider you my friends, many of you... Without you, I would not be considering going back to school now. Without you, I wouldn't really have anybody to talk to...
But there are those of you who REALLY are not welcome here, and it's because of you that I can't write much of anything important here anymore.
I was rereading some old entries from two autumns ago; they were all so personal, so real... That was before someone decided to contact my father to tell him, "your daughter wrote in her journal that she's a lesbian!" It was before Peter got my fucking password and I'm STILL baffled as to whom he got it from and how THEY got it from me... It was before someone decided to print some of my contact information in my guestbook.
...And it was before anybody could have been hurt. It was before the lists of secrets, the cheatings, the betrayals, the heartaches, the crushes, the resentments... It was before the first time I fell in love with someone I shouldn't have fallen in love with. It was before the second time, too. It was before I'd done things that *I* don't regret, but that might hurt people I love, if they knew...
But now, with Wet Cleanup, if one person's going to know, EVERYBODY'S going to know. I used to KNOW everybody who was reading this, and I used to know everybody who WASN'T. And now, I check my statistics and I panic if I see three different IP addresses from Seattle in the same day; I only KNOW three people in Seattle, and in the two and a half years of this journal's life, I have said things that would REALLY hurt or embarrass all three of them. It was easy enough when I KNEW they didn't have this address, it was easy enough when there was no chance of inciting drama because they didn't even know I KEPT a journal...
So now, have I said too much?
Fuck it. Just fuck it. I have nobody to talk to, because letting people in on your life is dangerous.
"I'm not ashamed of what happened... We didn't do anything wrong... But it might be a little bit easier if you didn't mention--"
Oh DAMN those words. DAMN them to HELL. Yes, it will be easier, plenty of dramatics and rumors will be avoided. I know damn well it will be EASIER to omit certain truths... I know that the pseudonym "Helena Thomas" doesn't cover up enough, and you ALL know who I am...
...But I don't mention anything. I don't mention one damned thing anymore.
I have gained dozens of friends because of this wretched site. I have also lost plenty. As a matter of fact, I could lose every single one of you because of this website, simply by telling you things you don't want to hear.
This site is maybe going to grow fairly boring. I'm going to keep it, simply because tearing it down seems like an absolutely impossible task, and because I think in basic HTML anyway... I'm going to keep it. But there's nothing to say. There's nothing to say that would keep everybody happy. Some of you want me to be happy, some of you want me dead, and some of you want me to stay away from your boyfriends. But I can't necessarily do all of those things at once...
I want somebody to talk to... I want somebody to talk to... I want a huge, huge plate of buffalo wings with lots and lots and lots of sauce, and I don't care what ANYBODY has to say about that...
~H.T.*