Thursday, Apr. 29, 2004 | 11:09 AM

It�s the waiting.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Nothing. Silence. And of course that is fine. I told him to take as much time as he needed. I told him I probably wouldn�t talk to him til next week.

Still, the waiting.

The waiting is killing me.

I can�t eat. I can�t sleep. I�m a mess. And it�s not even because I�m hoping for some specific answer. Really, I had to face when I wrote him that there was a distinct possibility that I would be rejected. I had to deal with that in advance so to speak. No�it�s not that. It�s that never ever in my whole life have I laid myself so bare and vulnerable. Never have I been so real with another human being. Never have I said every single thing that was in my heart.

When I was 19, some very bad shit started happening to me and I spent a long time being hurt. And I shut down on some pretty signifigant emotional levels. I built some heavy duty walls in order to deal. And they started breaking down when I did Cabaret. And then more so when I hooked up with Ivy. And more so when I moved in with Angus. And then I met Matt. And now I am a different person. Now I am the person I should have been and got sidetracked from being.

And I�m terrified. Oh my God I�m so terrified.

But one thing about going through the kind of hurt that I�ve been through�I know that I will survive. There is steel at the core of me. I know that nothing, absolutely nothing could be more devastating than what I went through, except perhaps having a child that died or something. But really, that�s the only thing possible in the world that I can imagine affecting me more than the cumulative sucker punch of emotional hell I�ve already dealt with.

So I can afford to be this vulnerable. And I can afford to love this much. And if he says no, if he says it was a fluke, if he shuts me down, if he hurts me, I will still be absolutely OK.

I was dead fucking honest. I was real. I took a serious risk. I ripped open my fucking chest and let him peer right into my soul.

And motherfucker�I am not going to be sorry when he tells me he doesn�t love me.

Part of life is hurt. You take the sorrow with the joy. I ill bare sorrow with grace and dignity and I will have no regrets.