To Whom It May Concern...

I couldn't really give a good reason why I started this blog, nor a good one as to why I continue it. Most days, it is a dumping ground for the silly thoughts that flit through my brain. Then today, I read JJD's entry over at empire, and I cried. For someone as emotional as I perceive myself to be, I really don't cry often. I couldn't figure out why I would cry .. after all, the emotinal events in the life of a distant friend, one connected to me only through T and very little even then, could hardly reasonably strike such a nerve.

After a few minutes, I realized it was the raw honesty of it all. Not something I allow myself very often, especially in a public forum. I decided that, maybe just this once, I would cast my thoughts out into the ether without censorship or grooming.

Because, maybe just this once.. in the cacaphonic whirlwind around me, I can find a brief circle of stillness in which I will have a voice.

So here are some truths about me.

I avoid making phone calls to strangers - be it the insurance company, the pizza place, whatever - at almost any cost. It terrifies me.

I'm terrified to open the door to a stranger.

I have never had a desire to hurt myself or anyone else. I am terrified of death - maybe even obsessed with the fear of it. I wish I could live forever, and make everyone I love live forever, too.

I go through up/down periods of energy. One day I will clean the entire house, top to bottom, do all the laundry, and take the car to the car wash. The next day I will spend entirely on the couch, in my pajamas, unable to do anything more than feed the kids and change diapers.

I would wrestle an angry tiger with my bare hands to protect my kids.

I am a compulsive eater, especially when I am sad or angry. As a teenager, on more than one occassion, I ate an entire can of frosting. With a spoon.

I am sometimes paralyzed under the weight of my own sadness. I don't know why, or what to do about it. I have gone through these periods of 'mourning' periodically for as far back as I can remember. They don't strike without warning, but in some ways that is worse -- feeling the slow cold of it creep over me as the days go by. Once it is in full force, it is crushing.. but not absolutely. I ride a roller coaster of good days and bad days - manic and depressive, though I don't really believe the medical classification is literally appropriate to me.

I can hide behind a smile better than anyone I've met. The only person who sees through me is T. I can't hide from him. Partly because he is so much a part of me, but not just that -- it's who he is. No one in his life has ever been able to hide from him. He looks out of those eyes - so brown they're almost black sometimes - and he sees it as it is, without pretext or disguise. So, he sees me. But he doesn't plumb the depths of what he sees. I think he's afraid to, because the hurt there is so raw and unmended, and because he can't fix it. He can't fix me, and so he carries my hurt like it was his own wound. And trust me, he has wounds enough of his own - adding to his burden is a constant spectre in my head. Knowing that he believes that if he could just love me enough, if he could just find the magic bullet he could make me happy and make me sparkle. Knowing that it just doesn't work that way. It rips at me, leaving a little bloody trail of regret behind. Because I want to be happy - if not for my own sake, then for his.

I don't want my little boys to grow up and remember a mom who always seemed sad, even when she was happy. I remember a mom who was that way - is still that way. You want to tear your own heart out and hand it to them and say "here, maybe this one will be a little stronger, a little less easily bruised".

There are days when I feel myself slipping away, drifting off into the fog. I want to scream - to shake myself awake. I tell myself what a terrible, self-consumed person I am. I want to slap myself silly, because there are people worrying about me and I don't want them to worry. I want to take myself off of their long list of worries.

I seem to spend my time walling off as much emotion as possible until the dam breaks and I am overwhelmed. Then I start the process over again. I guess today the dam broke. Just reading JJD. Because I remember how it all started, and that I was hurt. I don't think I ever admitted, even to myself, just how much it hurt.

I have not yet learned to grok old hurts, to consume them and make them a part of me, and to move on. I have learned to understand a lot of things, in retrospect. But it's not the same thing. Just understanding isn't enough -- I have to learn to accept that I am powerless to change the past. I have to learn to do it soon, before I completely miss out on the future.