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Privacy versus Transparency.
This is a toss-up with me.
Did you know I'm bipolar? Did I tell you that yet?
I've done this column thing before. Did you know that? I was the first columnist for happyrobot (this site you are on). I started back in '98 '99 or something near those years.
I told everything. "Kristen's Words" was my message in a bottle. It was my missives to the great unknown. I was speaking to god, myself, you, nothing....
I never read happyrobot. Or rather I rarely read it. I went to my encoded website with a password and wrote what was in my little fucked up head.
I didn't know anyone even read it. To my knowledge, happyrobot was a tiny website read by rich and maybe some guy/gal in singapore or japan that liked robots and was confused.
I read the guestbook one day after I had written for several several months. It had a nugget about my column. I was hooked. I realized that Lisa May had a column as well. I realized that the robot was bigger than I thought.
I got slammed as an annoying freak via the guestbook. This scared me because it was half what I believed about myself (the other half being that I was an amazing untapped butterfly in chrysalis - an event - a force waiting to be sprung - totally beautiful and innocent).
blah blah blah.
I began to get a bit defensive and angry. I began to get my feelings hurt.
It turned out that many people in my small town read my column. Strange people who I would never have guessed. Zach, charlotte, timmy, etc. Timmy once told mark that everyone reads my column in wilmington and they were all fascinated/pissed at/with me.
This startled me.
Then it angered me. I wanted anonymity in my hometown. Fuck them. I was definitely in a fuck them mood.
Here I am laying all my twisted, sick, vanishing thoughts out in permanent (until the giant magnets come) form. My cards were figuratively on the table, and these fuckers had the audacity to find fault with me.
Weren't they lucky? They knew where they stood with me. They knew where I stood. They knew my darkness and self-mockery and innocence and monster. I didn't know shit about them except for their mask.
I certainly wasn't begging them to read me. For fuck's sake.
In fact, to this day, I dislike when people (except for you blaine) mention stuff from my column. It makes it feel exposed to me. Like a secret.
Then I quit writing. It grew too much. What more could I say about my perfect life and my imperfect thoughts. What tales could I tell on my psychological nonsensical analyzation of how fucked up my friends were - and how they hurt me by reading all my heart had to offer and to still not sweep me up in their arms and tell me they loved me.
I have recently started writing again. My column is now named 'solstice' because I was going to have it begin on the winter solstice (rich was unable to comply and least of all myself gives a shit).
I love writing now.
I know what I'm in for - what could happen. Fore-warned is fore-armed. And quite honestly, I don't really have any friends now. I am a bit of a free agent.
(My definition of friend? someone who knows my thoughts and has a dialogue with me about it and cares and lives my day to day with me and gets stoned with me and laughs at the ridiculousness of the world while we drink and feel guilty and ponder and see each other as families would do).
I do have friends. I have the people that keep up with me and know shit about me and say "if you ever need me, I'll be there". But I need them all the time, and that really doesn't happen. It is something I am accustomed to, and I have no rancor.
This column is my only friend. These words are the only ones I really say. I am too fragile right now to be fresh in the flesh. I think I would cry if anyone really listened to me. I don't know if I want to cry. I don't think so.
The black hole was with me a bit this weekend. I haven't seen it in so long, and I had forgotten the fear of emptiness and unknowable shit.
I am wasting your time. You should get back to your life.
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