If I had to guess, I'd guess that it was about fifteen times. It's impossible to know for sure, because a while ago there was this disaster of sorts and a lot of comments and private messages were lost forever.

But fifteen is a good approximation. So I'll use that number. Fifteen times people went out of their way to tell me pretty much the same thing. To tell me what I pretty much already knew, or at least suspected.

I have this other blog, you see. And, in my other blog, I don't hold myself back nearly as much as I do here. I don't have to hold myself back, because it's anonymous. More or less. I've told a couple of people about it, where it is, but for the most part I've managed to keep my big fat mouth shut.

Anyway.

In that other blog, I've said pretty much everything that there is to say about a certain subject. And, if I do say so myself, I've done a pretty good job of writing those entries. It's actually readable, almost all of it, and that's a lot more than I can say about this blog you're looking at right now.

What people have told me, what people have told me about fifteen different times, is that my words would work. They'd stir certain emotions, and they'd cause certain reactions. Good reactions.

But, the thing is, that's not why I've written those words. I haven't written them as an explanation of my innermost thoughts. I never intended to use them in lieu of simply saying the words out loud, someday, maybe.

That other blog is more like a giant Post-It note to myself. So I don't forget what to say, if the time ever comes to say it. So I don't forget what I've felt, even if the passage of time is constantly threatening to strip me of those, my most precious memories. I never really meant for anyone to actually read the thing - it just happened. It's not even a real blog. It's a series of speeches that I hope to make someday. Before I die.

It would be so easy, right now, to let that cat out of the bag. I could just post a link to the thing. I could do it. But, I won't. I want to say those things out loud. I don't want to run and hide while they're read and absorbed and digested. I want to be there, and I want to see the reaction to my words as it happens. As reality sinks in. I want to watch as skepticism becomes clarity becomes understanding becomes, whatever.

Everyone already knows. That's the thing that gets me. Everyone already knows, but they turn away from the truth, because it's just too much. They throw words like exaggeration and dramatization in my direction, like those words could actually affect me. Affect this.

Lately, I've let my other blog slip. Not that it was ever updated with any regularity, but lately I've had things that I should have written there, and I haven't.

I've turned away from it.

I think that, sometimes, the truth is too much for me, too.