26 August 2001 ~ Don't get too close to my fantasy...

I forgot how much it hurts to write.

...to really write. Not just this day-to-day journal small-talk.

...to write about falling in love. About hurting people. About having bad timing.

I haven't cried in I don't know how long. Yet here I am, working on this project, cursing and yelling and throwing little objects at the wall, crying so that I can barely see, and swearing I can't finish this.

I can't do this... I can't write about this... I CAN'T TALK ABOUT THIS... I tell myself.

But you know what? This is a shitty, shitty habit I've developed: the result of too many relationships with people who didn't want anybody to know I had feelings for them. Or any feelings, for that matter. A result of customer service, where hurting isn't allowed. (Customer service, where feeling ANYTHING isn't allowed...) A result of being ridiculed a few too many times: invalidated. I'm not an open person anymore. It's harder than hell to write some of the shit I've been working on for the past ten days. Stupid, because it doesn't have an audience other than me.

Why do I feel so desperately ashamed of this stuff? It's not like I'm saying, "jeepers, I have chlamydia!" I'm saying, "Hi, I have the capacity to love." Why does that make me feel so damned dirty? Why do I feel like I've done something horribly wrong?

I've asked myself a million times, "Helena, where has your intensity gone?" WHY haven't I been satisfied with anything I've written, for so long? Why have I been so disgusted with most of my relationships with other people? Why do I feel like such a phony all the time?

I don't know exactly when I completely buried every ounce of my passion. More than a year ago, I think. I don't know exactly why, either. Probably had a lot to do with Peter. One of the main life-lessons I thought I learned from him was: opening yourself up and caring about somebody is going to kill you. Loving people isn't safe.

I think I've just had this huge revelation. It's not a pretty one, either.

I cried one night after I told Norman I loved him. I really thought I meant it, and it scared me, and I cried. I don't know how I rationalized this to myself; I guess I just believed I was crying because I loved him so much. It wasn't quite that; I know that now. I was crying because I was terrified of feeling anything for him. I guess that was the point at which I shut myself off from him. I picked a few arguments, I came up with excuses to be pissed off at him, I fucking cheated on him... I cheated on him with somebody who I was pretty sure I couldn't fall in love with.

Oh my gahd, I've been DEAD for like, a year... More than a year...

There were two times I let my walls down a little bit. It's like I'm sitting here and all of a sudden I can SEE how closed-down I've been, how completely removed...

I got out of my weird, fucked-up relationship with Peter. I pretty much said, "I don't love you anymore." I pretty much said, "I don't love anymore." It kept me "safe," I thought. I mean, I stopped thinking about suicide. I stopped being depressed and desperate and sad all the time. And twice since then, I've actually trusted somebody enough to say, "I love you," and mean it, and LET myself mean it.

I told David I loved him. I never really let anybody else know about that. Just kind of laughed it off. Just kind of pretended that that feeling of being ALIVE was some freakish reaction to the weather.

I told Brian that I loved him.

I meant it.

I told him I wouldn't let him break my heart. Like it's some sort of choice.

I wonder if I'm even capable of having a broken heart anymore.

I don't even know.

It's no fucking wonder I got mono. It probably had less to do with working 50 hours a week than it had to do with trying not to feel anything significant for anyone or anything.

I guess I'm rambling.

It's just... I was writing this thing, and I started to cry without even realizing it... I finished up my paragraph with a really loud bang on the keyboard, and then I had to get up and walk around for a little bit. Here I was, just pacing around my apartment, feeling guilty and relieved and disgusted and satisfied, all at once... I swear to gahd, I was breathing funny and I was sort of hysterical -- the sort of feeling I haven't gotten from anything other than caffeine in... I don't know how long...

And now, I just...

I have to sign off and go kill some brain cells with Lifetime TV...

I WILL finish what I started though. I think.

Holy shit, I'm exhausted all of a sudden...

~H.T.*