I am aware that I said I wouldn't whine here. I am well aware. But somehow, despite my best efforts to be cerebral, the emotion, the sensitivity creeps in.

I am also well-aware that anyone reading this could get the wrong impression of me. I may seem entirely insecure, neurotic. And while I'm neurotic, my insecurities are not all-encompassing but rather predominantly stem from my doubts about my skill and ultimate success as a creative writer. Paranoia I think it could best be called. And I am usually master of my paranoia; it does not master me.

I am further aware, though, that all this vulnerability could just be a construction. True, everyone is vulnerable in one way or another, but how much of my neuroses are in my head? Just because I see myself in a certain way does not necessarily lend those perceptions any validity. I do, after all, consider myself a writer. I create fictions. Has my most elaborate fiction of all been myself?

Just as I control the characters in my stories by what I do or do not say about them, I control how others see me by what I choose to reveal or hide from them. I am the one, after all, who selects the content for this blog. And although I erected it for the purpose of doing some soul-searching, am I only seeing the parts of me I want to see? Recording only the details, sensations, and fears I am comfortable with? Am I seeing myself as I want to see myself?

Or am I finally learning how to see myself as I am?