10:33 a.m. - Friday, Nov. 21, 2003
MsLeslie No More

A writer makes it her life�s work to observe and record. What she records is always flavored by her own experiences, judgments and emotions. To the extent that we, as readers identify, agree or respond to what the writer records, she is deemed a success. A really fearless writer writes honestly, meaning that she writes without regard to whether she will be �successful� or not. She writes about what she knows and if what she knows involves others, she veils those others but thinly. A fearless writer can hurt people. To be really fearless, she must hurt people. To save their feelings is to be sometimes less than honest.

A scientist observes and records too. The difference is, she tries as hard as she can to keep her own feelings, hopes and dreams out of the record. Even the mediocre scientist learned in college that even mere observation runs the risk of influencing the subject of the observation. When an anthropologist visits a new-found tribe of aborigines, she unavoidably introduces them to a variety of new and miraculous items and ideas. Pencils, paper� even writing have the capacity to rapidly change the way the members of the tribe see themselves and the world around them. And so the observation influences the observed. A chemist or physicist knows that to stick a thermometer into a liquid to measure its temperature will change that temperature, even if only to a miniscule degree, because the thermometer has a temperature of its own and will either add heat or absorb heat from the liquid. Perhaps the only group of scientists who are mostly immune from this problem re astronomers, who are so far from the stars they observe that it�s impossible to have any effect on them.

I�m neither a writer or a scientist. Still, I AM an observer and a recorder. I�ve tried to honestly examine myself over the last couple of years, and I�ve recorded a small fraction of what I�ve found by writing in my diary here. It�s been mostly good for me. I never did understand why I felt it necessary to lay it out in the open, but it�s been a good thing. I�ve grown some, so yes, the act of observing myself has also been the act of changing myself. But there�s a problem.

As I�ve also examined my world, I�ve changed it as well. Some of that change has been good. For instance, some few people have found in my words a few things of value to themselves. Some have called me courageous, some have said I inspired them� and some have just become friends through reading what I�ve written. In other words, in a minuscule way, my observations of the world have changed the world.

That�s great for the world at large. But not so great for the people I�ve hurt here.

My family, by and large, doesn�t read my diary. But some of them do, sometimes. And even if I try not to talk about them, I know that some of the things I�ve said have hurt them in some way. I�ve tried hard not to bring my family into my writings, but even then, reading that the person they grew up thinking of as their father now wants to date men is a fairly hard thing to do. And just as a scientific observation affects the thing being observed, an observation of my own life can have an effect on my life and the lives of those closest to the center of my world.

I�ve done enough damage here. I�m willing to accept the damage. I don�t apologize for anything I�ve said or written. I�ve been as honest as I know how to be. But that honesty has brought pain. Pain to me and to others who never asked for that pain and have nothing to gain from it.

Now I�m developing a little bit of a social life. I�m making new friends. I have a sex life. I have a lot of things I could write about, but I�m no longer willing to inflict any potential pain onto anyone. Not on my family, not on my old friends, and not on my new friends. And I�m afraid too, that writing about my newest acquaintanceships might have an adverse effect on those very relationships. How can I write honestly when I afraid to say what I feel?

So it�s over. This is MsLeslie�s last entry. I am so grateful for the friends who have stepped out of their lives and into mine long enough to be kind when they didn�t have to be kind. I�m so honored by those who�ve told me that I�ve helped make their own lives a little easier, and I�m really very proud of you all, just for slugging it through your own lives and still finding the time to be curious about someone else�s.

DiaryLand rocks� and so do you!

Happy Thoughts, Deep Breaths,

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