January 30, 2003 | 11:55 AM

I just wrote an email to a friend who lives in another city and doesn't know what's been going down in my life lately. Despite how awesome certain things are now, it wasn't a fun letter to write.

It's hard to know what to say when there are so many factors involved and so many relationships hang in the balance. I tried to be honest without being unnecesarily upsetting and without saying anything unkind, judgemental, or cutting about anyone else. And I think I succeeded. But I know this person is going to be sad and hurt and that makes me feel like shit. And it makes me angry, too.

It sucked. I imagine telling your kids that you're getting a divorce might feel the same as how I felt writing that letter. Another person's welfare was on my mind, and my main objective was not emotionally wounding him. Which is hard because I'm in a lot of pain and there's a lot I want to say about it. I haven't really said any of it to anyone except maybe my sister, and even there I've held back in a way that is uncostomary for me.

It had to be done, I guess-- this shitty letter. I can't just ignore what happened or never mention people's names ever again or entirely erase a whole porton of my life without explanation. But it's a weird situation to not really explain yourself, because I always explain myself and let people know exactly where I'm coming from. And now I can't, or won't rather. Perhaps there will be an appropriate time and place for it some day in the far off future when everyone has hindsight and it might actually do some good for me or for others. But I am certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that explaining myself will only lead to frustration on my part when people don't understand me and just don't see. The thing is, if they understood or saw in the first place, I wouldn't have to be telling them how I feel now because things would have turned out very differently.

It's times like these when I have to confront what happened that I realize how I'm still kind of reeling and disoriented, and that regardless of the positive decisions I've made, this has most definitely left a major scar. I've been done a favor by karma, and all of this has lead to some stunning and necessary realizations on my part that are only making me a better human being. But that doesn't change the basic fact that this fucking hurt. It really really hurt in a way that I can't explain because I don't think I've ever been so deeply hurt ever-- at least not in my adult life. It's not a hurt that's about one incident. It's a hurt that's all glommed up with so many many things that I'm not gonna go into, a hurt that ripped to shreds an entire era of my life, a hurt that was years and years in the making during which time a part of me died and another part of me was deceived. I suppose all this knoweldeg can only be good in the long run, but still, it's like watching your house burn down and everything you own get destroyed.

I'm interested to see how it all sorts itself out. Although if my intuition is as dead on as it's been lately, I think I pretty much already know.