Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2004 | 1:56 PM

Exactly one year ago, I wrote the following in my diary:

What will I be doing a year from today? What will you be doing? How will we feel about our lives and each other? Will we look back on certain things and say, �That was a wonderful choice I made.� Or will we regret our actions and wish we could repudiate them. You just never know. That�s why every move and breath is a gamble. And why it�s all so rewarding and so fucking painful at the same time.

Wow.

Wow. WOW!!!! Life is wild. In that entry I also wrote,

I do not think I will ever have that kind of feeling [love] ever again. I�m not saying I don�t love or won�t love ever again or anything stupid like that. I do love people. Very much. But something that was there, some kind of emotional mechanism, is just gone. It�s been obliterated. Maybe it�s a good thing that it�s been obliterated. I feel like a far more rational person. I have a lot more empathy for other people�s choices. I don�t see everything as revolving around me. But there were wonderful things too that are just gone�the sense that I could commune with someone wholly and totally without holding anything back. Or that people could be trusted completely. Or that real love and friendship could stand the test of anything.

I was right when I said some kind of emotional mechanism had been obliterated. But it wasn�t what I thought it was. It was my neediness, my desire for validation. I don�t think I knew what love really was until this year when I started really taking care of my own needs and giving freely to other people.

Here I am a year later, and my life is drastically altered. Who I am and how I feel about myself and other people is drastically altered. Over the past year, I have learned to love and trust who I am and thus have been able to love and trust others because I know my gut instinct about things is right on the money. My whole way of relating has transformed completely. You know, it�s like I�d stopped growing for half a decade, and then I had to catch up so I shoved five years worth of growth into twelve months.

This has been the best fucking year of my whole life. The hardest and the best. I knew at some core level that I would come out of this OK, and I have. I feel like I cracked the great puzzle and that everything after that is sort of a breeze�now it�s just about becoming the best fucking superstar of a human being I can be. I don�t mean that pompously. We all have the potential to be transcendent amazing human beings. And I think we all have some serious nut to crack before we can do it. Most people hide from circumstances that forced them to deal with their bullshit, and I happen to be either too stupid or too brave (take your pick) to hide. But everyone can become the greatest possible version of who they are. You just have to get out of the way of your own ego, take some risks, and don�t be afraid of falling on your face. I fell on my face over and over again last year and I still do it every day, but I fucking force myself to do whatever is scariest for me, and I force myself to remain as vulnerable and honest as possible.

When you truly break away from a cycle of being afraid, the whole world opens up for you. You just have to take that plunge. Quit that stupid job. Get out of that dead end relationship. Leave your safe dull small town. Do it. Do it. DO IT.

As Goethe said, What ever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.