Blogging is such a strange thing, and so different from any other writing I do, or have done in the past. I recently came across notebooks and notebooks full of horrible/amazing poetry I wrote while in high school. It was all so angst-filled and in typical teenage fashion pretty dramatic. I wrote for me, so there was no need to sugar coat anything. If I had a bad night, I wrote about it. If I felt slighted, I wrote about it. I wrote and wrote and wrote, capturing the moment for what it was, and exactly what I was feeling.
In college I wrote everyday too. At that time I was using an online journal (Diaryland and later Livejournal) but I also kept numerous paper journals I'd write in each night. Writing was my therapy and again, I wrote a lot more when I was sad. I'm a "feeler" by nature, and it's impossible for me to read a book or a story without taking on some of the emotion, so throughout my last two years of college I devoured book after book and poem after poem, and felt all of it. At the same time I was a typical college student and with all of it came a lot of ups and downs. But I made it a priority to write it all out, and it got me out of my head.
And so writing has always been a huge part of my life, then and now. I think about this space and it's a bit different, as far as what I share and when. I typically steer clear from really getting into things that bother me- I try to keep it light and breezy. I try to walk a line between sharing and sharing too much, but there are times where I feel inauthentic because I'll catch myself toning down my happiness, or putting on a cheerful face when I'm not, including or omitting something when I have my audience in mind. It's easy to write when no one is reading. My challenge at times is trying to find that authentic voice, even though there is that audience.
At times I want to say so much more. I want to talk about how upset I feel about a certain difficult situation that I'll always have to deal with, and always have to take the high road. I want to talk about how grateful I feel for this life with Hank and Henry that it makes me want to cry. I want to talk about how sometimes I feel silly blogging because I don't always have fun and interesting things to talk about. I want to discuss how the biggest thing I am working on is not feeling guilty for things. I want to go on and on about how disgusted I feel by old friends who think being homosexual is "wrong," and I want to talk about how I sometimes think about unplugging completely and just doing our own thing, without any audience at all. But then I stop myself from getting too into it, because I guess in a way I feel like I'd be burdening you with things that are a little "too much," be it negative or positive. And so I keep it simple and I keep a little bit more on the surface than I really could, and I am not sure if this is a good thing.
I read back in my Livejournal frequently and I am often taken aback with how candid I was. I sometimes find myself comparing my writing there to my writing here, but that was a different time, a much smaller audience, and that blog, although similar in ways, was so very different. At the same time I think I could stand to take a lesson or two from my old livejournal-ing self. This will never be an overly confessional blog, but catching myself doing that censoring, shutting things down because I feel just a little too vulnerable, or talking about something maybe one too many times because I don't want to talk about what's really on my mind, is something that only started happening as my blog gained more of an audience. I think it's inevitable, but I feel like there has to be a balance where I am still writing what I feel, because isn't that the essence of writing? Being bare and vulnerable, and putting little bits of yourself out there, setting them free, and sharing that part of you? It's a balance for sure, especially when there are other people's privacy involved, but it's important to me, and I never want to lose that part of this blog. So I will work on that.
I've been writing this post for what feels like forever, but held off on scheduling it because despite what my archives may tell you, I usually think that blogging about blogging is kind of annoying. After discussing privacy and sharing with a friend this morning and thinking more about the whole thing, I'm hitting publish anyway. As always, thank you for reading my whole mess of thoughts!