May 07, 2002 | 9:23 AM

Everything about me is very� big.

My body is big. My ideas are big. My feelings are big.

My feelings are often so big in fact that I am overwhelmed by them. And that�s a lot of the reason I started this diary. There�s been a great deal that has happened to me in the past few years which has been really difficult to process, and that�s why I started writing in here, and why I started writing the saga. I made a conscious decision to be as honest and true to my feelings as possible, with full understanding of how self indulgent and um�melodramatic I might come across. I mean, it�s a friggin� diary for chissakes. Where else do you put those kinds of feelings?

And when people started responding to it and telling me how much they could relate and listing me as a favorite and whatnot, I was really surprised because it never occurred to me that anyone would identify with me or like any of this crap. It was a welcome change to have contact with people whom I didn�t have to pretend around�pretend I was OK all the time, pretend that things were fine. So I stripped myself down more and more and became more and more vulnerable, and doing so felt really really good and helped me see how fucked up so much of my life has been and that it didn�t have to be�that I could change it. That I�ve accepted some very shabby treatment and that I can choose to not accept it. It�s been the most therapeutic and helpful thing to have happened to me in a long time. I hadn�t felt this cleansed since I was performing on a regular basis.

And then a person offhandedly cut me down, and I�ve said everything I need to say in response to that. I don�t want to let this person�s snarky, dismissive cruelty keep me from following through on something that has been so positive. But what worries me is that I don�t know whether I�m going to be able to really be as honest and vulnerable in here anymore, because I have this picture in my head of him and his girlfriend (who�s oddly enough been writing me for awhile, but supposedly hates what I do� hmm�) making snarky comments and laughing at my innermost thoughts. And really, it doesn�t matter if that�s the case. I�m sure there are tons of people who read my diary and snicker at it�and I always thought there probably were. But now I have proof and I can see these two people, Matt and his girlfriend, laughing at me. And I don�t want them metaphorically standing over me while I write saying, �Anna, you suck. You�re so fucking stupid.� I have a voice inside my head that says things like that to me all the time, which I have been trying to quiet for years. I don�t want to start apologizing for who I am, or cover up my feelings with irony. That�s what I�ve been doing for years, and why I�ve been so amazingly fucked up.

This whole experience reminds me of the worst aspects of junior high, where some asshole really got off on fucking with someone, and I was often that someone�most of us were at one point or another. I don�t want to let it bother me anymore, and I�m really going to try to rise above it..

I want to thank those of you who have sent me really nice emails and guestbook messages over the past day or so. It meant a lot to me and I promise I will get back to everyone within a few days, but right now my inbox is overflowing, so I just wanted to address how kind and supportive people have been. And I also want to say that I appreciate an email that I received from a good friend of John�s this morning. I�ll say more about it later, but it was very grown up.

Over the next couple days I will try to get back to �normal� and write saga entries and all that. We�ll see. I�ll do my best.