Dear Noter

Understand that you write for others to respond. If you didn’t want a response, you would privatize your entries. I’m blunt, and I call it like I see it.

I’ve read you for years, and for quite a long time I’ve disagreed with your choices and kept quiet. But recently, I think you’re taking the selfishness too far and something needed to be said.

Guess you don’t appreciate honesty. Peace out! [im_going_nowhere]

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You may write however you’d like. It is your right to do so. You have been reading my diary for years. That’s why I was so upset with your reaction.

I write to send some cosmic message out there. If people respond, that’s great, if not, that’s also great. I write so that people know they’re not alone in the things they go through. I write so that I don’t feel so alone and in my head. There are not many readers on here who know me personally, and I’m fairly careful to keep those who know me personally from finding this diary. Those that do come with the disclaimer that I will offend, I will write, I will say things that will hurt…. Not because it is my intention to harm, but because it is my intention to write.

I personally am a very avid carer of others. I’ve been in counseling for it for years now… I give too much of myself and the moment that I stop or waver or have a doubt or do anything that isn’t giving 110% of myself, I suddenly realize that I have no one standing by my side. So I’ve been trapped in a place where I feel I have no options except to give.

That’s what’s going on in my real life. On here, this is where I can muse on things that are selfish. I can ponder on things that make me feel strongly. I can explore darkness when I feel it inside of me. This is a place where I can sort through the garbage from the things that I really do want to be part of my life.

You’ve read me for years. You think I’m taking selfishness too far…. okay. I can accept your opinion. I can acknowledge that you are human with your own life experiences and your own pre-set notions and you have the freedom to feel that way about be. But it causes me to ask why you would continue to read a diarist that you don’t believe in. Are you hurt recently by my selfishness? Looking for some redeeming qualities so that your stability and structure that you’ve become accustom to isn’t being pulled out from under you?

You expressed your feelings in your note. I had to recognize that before I could come to terms with what you had said. I don’t think you were trying to be hurtful, but it was hurtful to hear.

I felt in my entry I had gotten to a place where I’m ready for a connection that isn’t physical, but is still intimate. That’s a HUGE step for me. You may not understand that because it’s not part of your world, but it is a part of mine. That was an exciting, yet complicated moment for me. What I wanted was encouragement: "yes it’s okay not to sleep with the people you’re close to, but to have close meaningful connections with people anyway". That is what I wanted to be greeted with because it’s a lesson I’ve been told I need to learn for years. I honestly don’t know if it is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’…. or if it is right or wrong for me. But it seems important, so I was willing to consider it. You may think that’s just an assumption people should automatically come with. But I didn’t. I think differently. I try to challenge myself to think differently about everything that I can grasp. Especially about connections with people. Humans aren’t connection to each other with love anymore. They are violent and sarcastic and mean. They use hurt as an everyday weapon, and while it is a part of growth, humans have lost track of how to love each other. How to truly love at all. My life is a history that tries to grasp at that concept. There are times that I fail. There are times that I fall… but there are also times that I make really good points. Times that I make tiny steps closer to finding out some sort of ‘truth’.

I am not capable of being in control of myself sometimes. It’s something I’m all too bitterly aware of. I have so much insight, and yet I can’t regain control of myself or my actions. You suggested that I needed to get control and own it. I’d challenge that if it were as easy as just taking control, I would have already done that.

I do the impossible. Every day, I am the woman you go to to make things happen. I burn both ends of the candle. I am whatever I am needed to be. I don’t do this on my own, but through the energy and support and encouragement from everyone surrounding me in my life. Lately, I’ve found a serious draught in that love and support. I’m have a serious issue finding that energy. My creative stores are spent.

So yes, I have been more selfish lately. Partly because there just isn’t much left of me to give. There are no safe places. There’s no one looking out for me on the day to day. And more heartbreaking is that I’ve recently found out that my wife, my spouse, my life partner, is not capable of supporting those day to day needs, or helping me to refill that creative well that I rely on so depsrately.

I am acting selfishly. I am acting impulsively. I’m reaching out and crying out for help in the best ways that I know how.

So, I do appricate honesty. But please understand that your honest idea of my world may not be honest to my world. I can accept your opinion in the preriferial vantage point that it is set from. I believe you are right and I do need control, but i believe you have no idea of the scope of what it is your are talking about in this particular situation. I recognize that you don’t see what I don’t write about. You can’t read the message behind the words. And I shouldn’t expect you to be able to. I am looking for SOMEONE or SOMETHING to be able to though. This is exactly the kind of dominance I’m talking about needing. I need for someone to have my back. To understand me. To see through me and call me on bullshit, but out of love, not judgement.

I just ask that if you’re going to speak honesty, please recognize that it is honesty from your perspective, and please do so with love and care and encouragement. OD is a community of misfits. None of us fit in, that’s why we write about it online. Those are dark and lonely places to be in. If we could approach each other with more love and less judgement, perhaps we could all feel a little less alone.

I’m not sure if I"m writing this entry for closure, or because I want that reader to understand. I’m not even sure that reader will read this entry (although, I have a feeling they will. Humans don’t generally like to leave things unsettled. They want closure and understanding.)

I think I’m just still seeking answers. I’m writing because I know I’m not the only one who has ever felt this way in reaction to something someone has said.

And I write because I want to be heard. I write because I have a voice that is valid and useful and helpful. Even if I use it for my own selfish purposes.