Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Hexagon Of Trust

You know the expression “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”? Yeah, well I don’t really do that. I keep my enemies (or anyone I dislike because they don’t improve on the silence when they speak) as far away from me as I can. Unfortunately, I tend to keep my closest friends even further away than that. I have six girls in my life that I consider to be my “best friends.” That means they know where the bodies are buried and nothing short of Sodium Pentathol would make them tell anyone where that is. Granted, part of the reason they do this for me is because I happen to possess some equally interesting information about them. But I’ve also proven to be a damn good friend over the years, the kind that would drop everything to help you move out of your ex-boyfriend’s apartment the moment it became necessary, which I’ve actually been called upon to do twice.

It has always served me well to keep these friends tucked away all over the country. RK and JK are here, of course, because you need to have some alibis close by. But CK is in Tampa, AT is in San Diego, JH is in D.C. and EC is three hours away in Champaign, Illinois. It’s nice to have friends who you can go visit that live in interesting places, and I also see it as being similar to why they don’t let Bush and Cheney travel together on Air Force One. If, Heaven forbid, the terrorists ever took down one of the aforementioned cities, there would still be friends around who know where I keep The List and can dispose of it should anything happen to me. Lord knows, I don’t need my parents finding that literature in the event of my untimely demise. And don’t even get me started on the shit they’d discover in my nightstand; I’ve seen adult websites that carry a smaller and less varied sex toy inventory than I do.

So anyways, the reason I’m telling you this is that, up until recently, these are generally the people I chose to share my intimate secrets with. But now that I’m pulling all of the skeletons out of my closet and making them dance for you here, obviously that’s changed a little bit. Certainly before it gets to you, a lot of this information still passes through the six of them to be (over)analyzed in that special way that only girls can. But now, I have to say that I’m really glad it’s getting to all of you eventually, because lately I’ve been told by several people who read it that it’s actually helped them to examine their own lives.

Wow. Really? You mean I’m not the only one who goes through all of this crap? Fuckin’ A!

No, seriously. I mean, I figured that since I have SO many experiences that certainly a couple of them had to mirror those of others. But still, it’s very gratifying to know that when I get dreamy-eyed and talk about my first time, or discuss the difficulty in letting go of a human security blanket, some of you are right there with me. Last week, my friend SD e-mailed me and said “your blog is making me find out some things about myself. You’re actually helping more than yourself.” And he’s over forty! Then yesterday, CC sent me a message that included the following, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside:

“The unique thing your blog has allowed, is not only for you to open up and work through the quarter-life crisis via a public forum, but also for the readers (or maybe just me) to work through similar thoughts by feeling validated that someone else is experiencing the same things…Your real gift as a writer, in my opinion, is that you’ve begun to write in a way that is honest with yourself and thus allows both friends and strangers to feel like we too are headed in the right direction…though we don’t have a freaking clue where that direction will take us.”

Not to toot my horn – oh fuck it, all I can do it toot my own anything these days – but in a little over a month I’ve had 2,669 (haha) unique visitors access this blog 4,967 times. Over half of those readers have been back at least once or twice to follow my progress. Yesterday was a big day for The Celibacy Project, but I don’t have anything particularly enlightening to declare about myself and the state of my sexuality today. So instead, I just wanted to say this again: thank you so much for reading along, you guys. I’m glad I’ve let you into what’s becoming one big ass Circle of Trust because you make waking up, not having sex, and writing about it almost every day worth it.

xo

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Who is JH in DC? I feel cheated now that I'm not your sole DC-area connection.