Monday, May. 05, 2003 | 11:07 AM

I just read over my last entry. And despite how incredibly far I�ve come in the last year (and I will for a moment congratulate myself for growing by leaps and bounds,) I have some serious work to do on myself still.

Why did this situation upset me so much? It�s the same problem I�ve been trying to work through my entire life. I use other people to validate me. The fact that my self perception could so drastically swing based on the comments made by another person�comments not even directed at me, shows that I still really need to learn to be my own person.

This is why I am terrified of intimacy. I find it nearly impossible to love someone without relinquishing personal power�especially in regards to romantic relationships with men. And it so happens that I consistently fall for men who run hot and cold on me, which can only be a mirror of how I view myself. Therefore I am always at the mercy of whatever side of the bed they happen to wake up on. And it�s a mistake for me to put this on �men� just as some men put all their shit on �women��it�s not a �men� �women� thing anyway. Although the political context in which I wrote my last entry is valid (I think there�s a serious conflict that all women have about being appreciated for who they are and it very much has to do with cultural biases, and everyone is affected by it regardless of appearance) there is something else going on here that I need to look at�the part of me still that is searching desperately for love and attention and validation from other people. I am never ever going to find that. It�s a bottomless pit for me. What makes me feel whole and validated is consistently pursuing daring creative projects, speaking my mind, being a leader, and focusing on art.

I honestly don�t know whether I could ever have a healthy romantic relationship. It�s second nature for me to give myself over to someone. I find it so easy to merge boundaries�that�s why I�m a good actress. I can key into other people�s energies and empathize with them completely. But in a relationship context this creates a debilitating loss of autonomy. And what I need more than anything is autonomy.

I wish I knew how to find the balance between emotional closeness and personal sovereignty. If I could solve that mystery, I�d be unstoppable.