Once Upon A Time

This is a beginning.

It probably isn't obvious, so I thought I would define it right up front. It sure as hell isn't an ending, but I can't bring myself to jump right in either. After all, this isn't fiction. I can't you into the middle of the action and let you learn as you go, or you'll probably never figure out what's going on, never mind the fact that it's a real life so ... not much action, really. So this is a beginning.

The problem with this statement is that I don't know where to start. I'm not going to be self-deprecatingly dishonest and say that there's nothing interesting to say, not any relevant and potentially interesting history. Nor am I going to fall into that self-obsessed cesspool of believing that I am the star and that you are just desperate to hear every thrilling detail of my tragic past (you'll laugh, you'll cry, etc.)

There's actually probably quite a bit I could tell you about my background that would catch interest and entertain--at least for a few minutes. And I am, at heart, a storyteller. I am not above using my own experiences as tales with which to regale my friends, family, random acquaintances, etc. But that is not what this is for. Really, my past is not a story. It's my past, it's a part of my life, and I had to live it. The good parts, the bad parts, all of it.

Lately I have been haunted more by the bad than the good, and haunted enough that I don't particularly want to talk about those experiences in terms of a story. Which is probably exactly why I should be writing about them here. Because this is my journal, really, my place to be unabashedly inside my own head. I'm not so great at that off of paper. I know there's a huge discrepancy between what I show people I am, and what I really am inside my head.

Sometimes I'm not sure why people want to be around me, what my friends and boyfriend like about me. And this isn't some crying whinging "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, bring on the worms" things ... nor is it "If they really knew what I'm like they wouldn't like me." It's actually almost the opposite. I think the person I am inside is worth liking and worth being around, but I'm not showing that. I'm not behaving 'authentically' as my shrink would say. Can people really not tell that--for all intents and purposes--I'm not real? I'd think they would sense that and draw away. But they don't. Sometimes that worries me.

So perhaps you will come to know me better than anyone else does. Which is funny, because at this point, I do not intend to give my name, my location, or really any identifying information at all. Just my mind, like it is inside me, instead of what it is filtered into the outside world.