warts and all

Let's talk about goals for a second. Considering Brian didn't have any, it's only fitting.
My goal here is to lay EVERYTHING (within reason and appropriateness) on the table, regarding the last three years of my life. I think a lot of people set out to write blogs about the superficial facets of their lives, occasionally touching on the personal if only to expose the funny, pathetic, poetic or impressive parts of themselves. It's scary and dangerous to write the real. Who knows who your audience may come to include. I'm not saying I blame anyone for this, I'm just saying that I'm going to try and break out of it. To me, the only point of writing a journal at all is if it helps me talk things out with my demons and organize the inevitable chaos of being in my early 20's (does being 20 count as my early 20's?). Masking the ugliest parts of my story may make it easier to read, certainly easier to write, but it will not help me. I am going to talk about this "warts and all," in the words of Oliver Cromwell.
For a couple of years now I have been only telling half the story, if I was telling it at all. When you are in a serious relationship with someone, once you're past the infatuation phase and you've admitted that you're committed, it kind of becomes everyone's business. My relationships are certainly the concern of my family and friends, something I hadn't anticipated when things with Brian started to go downhill. I had no trouble filling my homies in on all the sweet things Brian would do for me; how he drove 13 hours to visit me at school in my freshman year at Knox, how we liked the same bands and how endearingly terrified he was when he witnessed for the first time one of my legendary panic attacks. But I hadn't planned for how difficult it would be to be open with everyone once the big fights started coming more often, once he had become controlling and wildly temperamental. What would happen to my dignity when I exposed myself as the kind of girl who stays with a guy after he turns out to be a monster? (It took me the better part of a year to understand that being in love with someone enough to give them another chance, and then another, and then another, isn't weakness but actually strength, in its own way.) So I learned to avoid and omit. Thus went my sanity.
I'll begin at the beginning. I met Brian early in my senior year in high school. I was on top of the world back then. I was popular at school and in excellent health. I was among the last of my friends to get my license and also to lose my virginity- I think I had just recently gotten my license when I met Brian, but I was still waiting on the other one. I had had a couple of pretty superficial relationships that were nothing if not typical and I was making good headway on making the right amount of poor judgment calls to be considered cool by high school standards. I liked to party but I wasn't addicted to anything and I had strict standards about what I would and wouldn't introduce into my bloodstream.

That's all I have time for right now. I'm to try and include a few excerpts from journals and poetry that parallel what I'm talking about here.