“I’m at a crossroads,” I tell her. “Do I abandon my blog and readers…do I sacrifice the support they give just to start all over somewhere else with an alias?”
As always, she was level and logical and put together what I was saying with what she was *hearing* and what she knows about twenty years of me and my heart and my mind and said matter-of-factly “I think you just have to put it out there without apologies: I’m not going to censor myself anymore.”
We were in the middle of the gift shop at the Chattanooga Choo Choo and while she picked up little trains and inspected them for the worthiness of her child, one processor in my brain paused while the other went into overdrive.
When it started, no one read and I didn’t care what I wrote. “I burned my popcorn at lunch…” blah blah blah.
It was for me, and served as an absurd sort of on-line diary and in the most basic way, I was maybe earlier but fundamentally no different than damn near any other blogger out there, and at last count I think there were 1.86 bijillion of ‘em. Writing on-line was a way to remember experiences, thoughts, and adventures. It was a safe place to let my demons out to play, battle and be purged.
But something I didn’t expect happened: people started reading. They started commenting and I started thinking more about what I was writing. It provided me an opportunity to be more introspective (at times) and encouraged me – as Jack Nicholson would tell you in As Good As It Gets – to be a better man. Er. Woman.
My friend Heather is quick to point out that one of my biggest flaws is that I care too much. She says it with a hint of love, but it’s intended as an insult.
I care about the choices people make. I care about helping people I know and people I don’t know in whatever passive or direct way I can, and I care if I hurt myself or others with my words or actions.
So, I’ve censored myself and sanitized my writing. I’ve taken all the effing fun out of it, and that alone qualifies me for a life long sentence on the Golden Twinkie.
I hold back about my mother because her sister (who I love – Hi Auntie Moie!) reads the site and I’m fully aware that the way my mother would want to be remembered by friends or loved ones or known by complete strangers is not the way I would describe her or our years together.
I hold back about other family struggles because my siblings read. Hell, I’ve never even mentioned my ex-husband directly, but then, let’s see: a) I don’t want to admit that particular failure b) don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing his name (since he still comes here looking for a mention of himself) and finally c) I don’t want to remember that he existed.
OTOH, there is The Mc. Plenty of bits I could have used these pages to process in the early days/weeks/months of our courtship, but I don’t want him involuntarily thrown under the microscope, and therefore try to leave him off the page.
Add insult to injury with my fondness of four letter sentence punch ups. I’ve mildly adjusted my sailor vocabulary because some friends and friends of friends have more delicate sensibilities, and even if they’re immune to it, folks they know aren’t. I’ve had people de-link me because of the way the people that read *their* blogs would think of them if they knew they read me. Which is neither here nor there. I understand, even if I don’t agree.
Boundaries can be good. Maybe I sound ignorant when every sixteenth word typed is four letters. Maybe “fuck” drops readers and they miss the point. Eh. Whatevs.
These boundaries are bad.
Somewhere in all that anti-bacterial writing bullshit, I lost my voice, my inspiration and my passion. I am suffocating. Writing has become a burden instead of a pleasure because I’m worried about what you think instead of honoring what I feel. Your mere existence makes me tired.
So with thanks to Julie (my angel of sanity and heart of hearts) I say: I’m done.
Forgive me for anything I may say that offends and remember: you can always change the channel.
I write, you read. It's a clean and simple relationship.