If anyone notices...

No, I haven't unfriended anyone or cut people out of filters. I just set the majority of my journal to Private. If there are any posts in particular people can think that they absolutely want me to keep public, just leave a comment and I'll do it if it's not anything I deem as bad.

Why I'm doing this is partially because I'm Going Through Some Stuff at the moment, and also because I kind of wanted to clean house so to speak. I'll probably reopen some entries in a few days. I think really that I just kind of want to start over with this journal and start taking a different approach to how I write here and what I write here. I'll still talk about the personal stuff, but just for a little bit here I need to kind of pull back and lick some wounds while I figure out a game plan.

In the mean time, if people want to unfriend me or leave mean comments, feel free. I'm going to drop some communities, but I had no plans to cut anyone off my f-list since I still like you all, even if I don't comment much.

As strange as it sounds, it feels good to close off a fair amount of this LJ considering how long I've had it and how much has happened since I started it. Considering I'm about to move (FINALLY) and my life is taking a different direction, I suppose that tossing out the Old Crap was a good idea. It's still there if I want to revisit at least.

Also, purchasing a namechange token tomorrow and picking out a new name. Suggestions welcome. :p

It's not what you think. No, really, it's NOT what you think.

I want to make it clear that the reasons I privated my LiveJournal have nothing to do with any person. There's been no leak, no one in my real life discovered me, nor has anyone leveled any threats my way. The simple fact is that after four years(!) of maintaining this journal, there's a lot of stuff on here and my f-list has changed considerably over time. I'm not ashamed of any of it. Some of it might be a little embarrassing, but I can laugh about it at least. I've learned quite a bit about myself and about others, and I think it's time I made changes to reflect that.

Sometimes when I have to deal with some not-so-fun stuff in my head, I want to pull away and close myself off to everyone around me. And with so many things starting to change at once, I've been kind of overwhelmed to put it mildly. I felt relieved to shut down my LJ to give myself a chance to breathe before I go back in and decide what to share and what not to share. I didn't realize that I was holding on to some anxiety about the old stuff floating out there in cyberspace, and it was a shock at just how good it felt to know there's now nothing in here that others can see. I hated to shut some of you out (including Sam) considering that I love you guys for being there when I was going through a hell of a lot, but at the same time this was the right thing to do.

Again, if there are any entries people found particularly poignant, funny, and/or informative, I will be willing to reopen them when I come across them. All you need do is ask and provide a decent description of the entry. It might take me some time to find it, so it would be helpful if you remember a rough time estimate of when I wrote it too. Tags won't help because, um, I sort of deleted all my tags with the intention of going back through here and re-tagging the entries I choose to reopen. Yes, it was potentially unwise of me, but I like a good challenge and I really want to reorganize everything. *coughs* Stop looking at me like that. >.>

I'm redoing filters too and will make a poll later for people to pick and choose what they want to have access to. I have to leave here shortly to pick up Penny from the vet and will be spending my evening keeping an eye on her since she'll be a little loopy (routine procedure, no one freak out please). The kiddo is with Mom for his weekly overnight with her, so I'll have the ability to relax and have some fun playing around with my journal. I'll also be brainstorming for a new journal name and I think I have at least one idea, though it has connotations for me that I'm not sure I want. The other might come from something else. I'll try to keep from spamming your respective f-lists, but I expect I'll be a bit posty over the weekend while I continue with my cleaning.

Why I Write Here

Frustrated? Yes. Why? Because it is impossible for me to be God — or the universal woman-and-man — or anything much. I am what I feel and think and do. I want to express my being as fully as I can because I somewhere picked up the idea that I could justify my being alive that way.

-Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000), p. 45

Life is ugly. Living makes us ugly by association. There is no beauty to be found in the pain simply existing in this world can bring. I have suffered loss in many various ways, witnessed the agony of a slow death twice over, and battled with my own mind for my sanity. There is no way I can dress any of that to make it pretty or more palatable, nor can I erase the past as though it never happened. It's there in all its horror and it will never go away. To ask me to hide that ugliness is to ask me to deny that which has made me what I am. I don't want to do that anymore. There should be no shame in my admitting that I am a deeply scarred person because I can no more change that than I can change the color of the sky. It simply is.

I think life is terrifying and hideous, not amazing and beautiful. But what I do find amazing and beautiful is that for all the ugliness I have experienced, for all the venom the world has tried to poison me with, and for all the times I have been broken and forced to mend myself again, I still know what it means to love and be loved unconditionally. I still know the joy of friendship. I can still smile and laugh, and I know what it means to be happy. That I have lived through what I have and still want to keep going, even knowing that there is yet more pain to experience, is beautiful, amazing, and absolutely wonderful. That I still believe it is possible to heal is nothing short of miraculous.

This is not the journal of someone who is consistently able to find the proverbial silver lining. My words are not always pretty or even very kind, but they are mine and I write them to remind myself of how far I've come and how far I've yet to go. I share them because I know what it means to feel scared and alone, and I know that sometimes it's life's ugliness that bonds us all together.