I really just don't know how to start this.

I guess, first off, I should acknowledge the fact that this blog has become completely personal. All of my excuses and rationalizations that it was otherwise; the one thing I was so set on was setting boundaries between my personal life, and this blog. I didn't want to end up where I started -- writing about who I am and what I'm doing and how I feel. Because, as lovely as that all is... I just didn't want to put myself out there anymore.

Ah ha, I said it.

But:

I couldn't do it.

Or it can't be done. Or, I couldn't do it. If this blog was an experiment, if it was a science lab testing things about my life and myself and my intellect and my heart, then what this experiment will be written up as a Failure.

I don't mean failure in a negative way. But the experiment itself (Can I write a blog about what I think, without including the rest of myself in it? Can I keep a public me and a private me, teased apart?) is an utter failure.

I'm not so opaque I guess: people who know me -- even people who *don't* know me -- can read this blog and read me just as well. This blog reads like its own story. I can look back on posts and know exactly where and when I was, what I was thinking, why I wrote that entry in that way. And it would seem that I'm not the only one who can look back and see a story too. I kind of feel like I'm in Earth Science, looking at a cross-section of soil...
"And this was a drought year. And that layer of sediment there? That year, that year it rained. And that layer there? That layer -- there was a flood."
Anyone who reads this may not know what happened exactly. But they can put a story to it. And to me... they can put a story to me.

For all the protests about how much I wanted this blog to be kept separate, the one side of me was not enough. The one face of Jekyll without Hyde. The light without the dark. The posts never felt complete, never really felt completely satisfying. There was always some deeper truth I was playing at, trying to imply, trying to say.
And it wasn't honest, in that regard. And they weren't honest for the fact that we all know Jekyll has another side. He isn't complete without Hyde, the story can't be told with his other half. The entirely good side is a facade, its overdone makeup, its a costume. The real story, the whole story, it may be dark, ugly, embarrassing... but whatever it's underbelly, it can't exist in full without both sides.

By trying to keep it all separate, it almost spoke more about what I was trying not to talk about -- the other side. The contrast; the full and honest story.

And so this blog was a failure. I always feel that some of my best education has come from my failures, and I feel no differently about this one. I learn from them, almost more so than from my successes sometimes. And what I have learned here, is that I just can't. I can't separate myself out. Maybe you can. Maybe other people can test this theory and find success. But I couldn't, and I can't.

I accept this.
I accept this about myself -- I can't be truly happy if I'm just being one side. If I'm separated. If I keep myself teased apart. It isn't me. To be honest, I do embarrassing, ugly, dark things. But if I'm not standing by both parts... then I'm not fully there. And acknowledging this? However embarrassing it is to un-seperate, to de-wall... to reveal that side, the Jekyll, the dark -- however scary it is, I'm happier now than I've been in a very long time. Sometimes being there, being 100% there, means there will be lower lows too -- but honestly, if you're going to get on the rollercoaster, you get on for the whole thing. The dips and the rises. I guess what I'm saying is, I have to acknowledge and accept the dips to ever feel the rises again. I have to live both sides, be both sides, acknowledge all of them.

I'm just trying to remember that there would be no value in the light, if there was no darkness to exist on the other side. The other side -- its holds weight too. Place value on its existence: what it means for a person's complexity and the contrast it gives to everything, or maybe everything loses its vibrancy.

So, I will probably come to feel awkward about this, maybe. I'm not even sure who all will ever see it, read it, understand it. But... its here. God, I already feel kind of fruity about this post. But I'll bite down and stand here through it.