Friday, Nov. 21, 2003 | 2:41 PM

Was I complaining earlier about how much things suck?

I was mistaken it turns out. They don�t suck. Things are just awesome.

If I spent the past several years feeling constantly hurt and disappointed, I am now constantly surprised in a different way. If I learned in the past to become horribly suspicious of everyone and to expect to be devastated, I am now un-learning that. Just when I assume that people are being jackasses, I find out I was totally wrong. Not only that, I am constantly in awe of how kind, compassionate, and caring people are. And for the very first time in my entire life, I really and truly feel loved. I�m not saying I�ve never been loved before, but I have never understood what it felt like. And now I am learning. I am learning to be able to say how I feel without expecting to be told how crazy I am. I am learning that sometimes people keep promises. Sometimes people really do tell you the whole story. Sometimes people love you no matter what. It�s a whole new universe for me. And it�s not that I�m being catered to or anything like that. I think in the past I had a lot of people in my life who treated me like a spoiled child�humored me, babied me, kept things from me �for my own good�, and indulged my temper tantrums while completely invalidating anything I legitimately thought and felt.

In the past I had raging codependent relationships with the people to whom I was closest. I counted on them to take care of me and protect me�maybe because as a kid I felt abandoned and not taken care of in many ways (yes this entry is turning into an episode of Oprah-- I�m sorry.) The joke is that I was capable of taking care of and protecting myself the whole time. I am one of the strongest people I know and I never realized it until I had to. Being hurt so badly forced me to be my own person. I needed it. I needed to be utterly devastated. I needed to have the scariest possible things happen to me in terms of personal relationships so I could realize how skewed my view of myself and my life was. I�ve grown more in the past year than I have in a long long time. All in all I continue to feel better and better about everything, and more and more like myself. Somebody said something rude to me about my weight the other day and I actually laughed at them. My feelings were not hurt at all. A year and a half ago I would have felt terrible for days. Now for the first time I�m choosing how I define myself and I won�t let anyone do it for me. And it�s the most amazing fucking thing ever. It�s the metaphysical equivalent of winning the fucking lottery.

Now that I know I can take care of myself and that I don�t need anyone, again and again I find out how fucking amazing people are. I can�t believe that people are so fantastic. I can�t believe that people are actually honest with me. Maybe this sounds retarded, but it�s like a fucking revelation to not have to wonder whether I�m crazy all the time. And to be straight with everyone else�to just say how I�m feeling! My god�it�s the best. I can�t believe how fucking awesome it is. To just say �I�m angry� or �I�m upset� or �I love you and I want to fuck your brains out right now.� To just say it and have it be fine. You know how I used to feel? For years and years I felt like that kid Conrad in Ordinary People. Like I was choking to death on my own feelings and eventually of course they would come out in all these horrible ways�like getting drunk and screaming at someone or using this very website as a bully pull pit. Because I never had permission to just express my feelings. And finally I stopped waiting for that permission and I gave it to myself and I won�t have anyone in my life who doesn�t give me the permission to say exactly what I think and feel.

OK�I know this shit is fucking boring to read and it�s all new agey and whatnot. I kind of hate that I�m so fucking soft and gooey and new agey. Honestly, I wish I was hip and angular and deeply snarky, but at core I�m pretty much not. For the next few entries I�ll cease boring the bejesus out of everyone; I�ll try to stick to writing about how I wanna bang David Cross and why the Upright Citizens Brigade is a bunch of fucking geniuses.

Puppies, the world is a beautiful place.