March 02, 2003 | 12:22 PM

I am around people almost all the time and yet I feel consistently and profoundly lonely.

Something has burned out of me. Something really vital that had to do with relating to other human beings. I just don't get a lot of joy from that anymore. Knowing that nothing is really sacred. All the idealism just went up in smoke. I am wary. I am well defended. And I can say quite safely and honestly the greatest eye rolling cliche of all time-- I truly don't think I will ever love anyone ever again. Not like I was once capable of anyway.

I love people who are safe to love because they are far away. Or who have proven over years and years and years that they they are who I think they are.

But perhaps this is exactly what I needed, really. In order to be able to do the work I'm doing. In order to have the single minded focus and drive towards succeeding, perhaps that personal idealism and attachment to some kind of emotional lifeline needed to be torched. And I will probably look back on it one day, when I can't remember anymore how it used to feel to love so deeply, I'll look back on it and be glad that I changed so much.

Only right now, I do remember what it felt like. And how magical it was to believe in it and count on it. And that hurts.

See, if I get to do what I want to do-- say theater, for the rest of my life as a career, I don't thnik I'll mind not having real personal relationships, because my relationship to what I do will be real enough. I just hope that I actually get to do that because I truly don't think life would be worth living if it's just the day in day out droan with no love anywhere in sight.

Oh blah blah blah.

I hope I look back on everything in say a year and laugh at it and think what a silly twerp I was to give such a damn about something so totally pointless.