I know who reads this blog. Not everyone, of course, but I can rattle off a handful of people who I know check this site on a pretty regular basis.

I appreciate people I know reading my blog; I think it's great and I wish more people I knew had blogs so that I could read them. Anyone who knows me knows that I value honesty and candor above many other things, which is I think why I've had a blog for so long. I don't think people should be ashamed of their thoughts. I can understand why they would be hesitant to post them online for anyone to see. I'm not that hesitant.

I do hesitate a lot lately when it comes to writing here. Sometimes it's because I feel like the things I'm thinking about are pretty self-serving and, frankly, boring to other people. But other times it's because on some level I am still afraid. Will people accept my flaws? Will they judge me? Will knowing my secrets change the way they look at me, talk to me?

Will the people I love, or want to love, stop loving me if they knew the things I carry with me?

I once made a very difficult and extremely vulnerable admission about myself to someone I was dating and he responded by telling me he didn't want to deal with my emotions and that if I ever relapsed he would break up with me.

In some ways, I don't want to let that stop me from talking. We should be able to handle each other - everyone. We should be able to open ourselves, to empathize, and to love. We should want to deal with each other's emotions - isn't that what makes us humans? Isn't that what makes us alive? What makes us inexplicably connected to one another?

Isn't that what we live for? Human contact? Love?

It's what I live for. I suppose I write my blog because I want people to understand me - so they can practice understanding each other as well.

I'm working my way back up to candor.