I've been blogging now for almost 4 years. I started this blog, which I renamed today, when I was about 6 or 7 months pregnant with Wild Man, who is now 3 years and 9 months old. My life has changed a lot. I started this blog as a way to explore and chronicle some of the changes I was facing at that particular moment in my life. Along the way, I've used the blog as a journal, albeit a public one. This blog has enabled me to explore, to vent, and to record my thoughts and feelings, among other things. Along the way, I've made some friends and been able to keep in touch with others. Some months I post a lot, and others I rarely post at all. I must admit I've never really thought about what this blog meant to me until this week.
Last week I wrote a post that upset someone I love very much, and in an attempt to make that person feel better, I offered to take the post down. When this person took me up on that offer, I had no idea that I would have such a visceral reaction, but I did. I sobbed as I took down the post. I felt like I was ripping a page out of my journal, a journal that I actually reread with some frequency to try to learn about myself. It seems in the course of the past 4 years blogging has become central to my identity in a way that I couldn't have anticipated and in a way that I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable with.
On some level, it does seem odd to me that I now feel like I need to blog. I often put really private thoughts out into the world, and while I'm not usually seeking out feedback, I do find some comfort in knowing that someone, somewhere, even if that someone is a person I've never met and never will meet, reads and takes the time to comment on my thoughts. I have long accepted the reality that blogging means I have to deal with comments I don't agree with or with people not fully understanding something I've written. I've even pissed off perfect strangers a time or two, and I've also had dear friends misinterpret things I've said or take things I've said out of the context in which I intended them. I have learned to live with that. And while I do blog about the people in my life, I feel like this blog is primarily about me and my journey through life. Blogging helps me stay self-aware. It helps me process my thoughts and feelings (and now that I've used "my" and "me" so much I'm feeling more than a bit narcissistic). I never thought that something I had written or the way that people had responded to something I had written would upset someone I love. But it did. As a result, my feelings about blogging have changed.
Blogging no longer feels as free as it did. I've always self-censored in my feeble attempt to remain anonymous, but since most of my family members either don't access the internet or don't know what a blog is, I've never really worried about their reactions to anything I've written. Now that I have inadvertently hurt someone, I'm unsure of how to proceed. Do I keep writing and naively hope that I don't hurt this person again? Do I change the nature of what I write, thus defeating one of the primary purposes of the blog? Do stop blogging altogether? Do I close this blog down and start a new one, in which I'm completely anonymous? Do I tell this person that I'm sorry, but that I'm going to keep blogging because it is, after all, something that I do that I truly intend to be just for me (on some level, I'm really inclined to do this, but then, I also feel like this response is inherently disrespectful and dismissive of this individual's feelings)? Or do I simply do my best to keep this person out of my blog altogether, something that is very difficult given the nature of our relationship?
In all honesty, I'm at a loss. I'm currently contemplating ways to continue blogging and to maintain this blog while achieving a greater sense of anonymity. I'm honestly not sure that is possible or if that is even something that I want to do. Ultimately I think I'll make some minor changes, including not discussing this blog at all outside the blogging world. I hope that is enough to ease my anxiety and to make this person feel better about the fact that I now know I need to blog.
6 comments:
I'm sorry, M. I really know what you mean about needing to blog, and about putting personal, private matters on a public space. Somehow, writing personally and having to take responsibility for it (even pseudonymously) does a lot to help me process things going on in my life. Lately I have been considering a transition away from my pseud blog so I can put more attention on my flagging real-life blog. But the thought saddens me. I need that space, I need my readers.
I have upset people I love in the past with what I've written on my blog. We've gotten through it. I censor myself more because of it. But ultimately things calm down after a while, and I find my voice again, and the other person gets through it too.
I hope you get through it, because even though I rarely comment, I always read, and I think of you and your family often. I think you're doing a lot of things right and well, and I appreciate what you share.
Oh no, I'm sorry that this happened to you! But we bloggers are bound to face this some time or another. My mom read a post I wrote about her and it was AWFUL! I talked to her and I decided not to take the post down in the end.
Your situation is quite different from mine (I think I know what happened reading between the lines), but still, the feelings that result from a situation like this are the same (and it was a similar thing when I had that horrible troll a while back). We feel lost and don't know how to proceed. I think that what Kate said is right... you will get over this hurdle.
I guess you can choose to see this sad event in a positive light since it revealed to you how deeply important blogging is in your life. And while it will be hard to keep on writing after what happened, particularly because you'll be second guessing your words and self-censoring, I think you'll be fine for one main reason. You've very infrequently written posts such as the troublesome one. In the end I think we end up not sharing much of certain aspects of our lives naturally. There are so many other things that you generally discuss here in the blog and those you can keep on writing freely about.
I know it's really annoying to hear us say "it will pass," but it is true. Of course there may be scars, but that's the way it goes with relationships -- whether one's blogging one's life or not.
I'm glad you enjoy our interactions! And I'm also sure we'll find a way to meet in person someday too! (I was so close just 2 weeks ago, but our trip was already very long as it was ;-).
So sorry you're at such a loss. For my own selfish reasons, I vote for you continuing to blog, as it gives me a small window into my good friend's life who lives thousands of miles away.
But in all seriousness, I can see that blogging has become a good friend to you, if you will. Blogging/emailing/texting/face-booking these days is really no different than calling and talking to a good friend about a problem. True it's more public and you tend to be less censored when you blog/email/text/facebook than speaking to someone in person. But it provides a good outlet. If you had called a good friend about this topic and your loved one found about it and was hurt, would you stop talking to your friend? Probably not. At least I wouldn't. And you are not being insensitive to his feelings at all for wanting to blog. Like you say, it helps to process your feelings before you decide to approach a difficult situation. And if that makes you a better person, mother, daughter, sister, wife, than your loved one should be supportive of that.
I came over last week to comment on the post and found it gone. I figured you had decided after the fact to take it down--I think we all do that sometimes. I am very sad to learn that you were told to take it down.
What I wanted to say was that I didn't like that you framed the discussion the way you did, as a conversation about your own failings. It was the only way to frame it, I think, and keep focus on your own behavior and reactions. I didn't like it because I didn't think you did a damn thing wrong--not even by feeling the way you did.
The way I read the post, it was about professional boundaries. I saw lots of ways to fix the problem at hand without doing any harm to anyone's academic progress.
And then I felt frustrated on your behalf because your framing communicated that there was no way you make those suggestions without making someone angry.
It's not that there was any wrongdoing per se. But yes, there was a problem. An understandable problem but one that wasn't yours.
I don't know that you want to hear any of this. Delete this comment if you want. I've said what I had to say. And I'm hear to read whatever you want to process.
Like Anastasia, I too came back to comment on the missing post. I had a lot going on last week but I thought about it a great deal while I was cleaning, and thought about it in terms of myself and my own experiences. That's something I really like about this medium: people will post things that make me think!
I agree with Anastasia comment as well. The best way to know these things sometimes is to put it out there. I was in a similar situation and I asked a very level headed friend "am I just over-reacting?" It doesn't mean that it's easy to make the other person see what you me, nor will you get them to agree.
If the person is who I think it is-well such a person in my life doesn't read mine. It's available but said person just doesn't care. However, I do have 2 family members that read and b/c of that I find myself deeply censoring things that I'd otherwise want to post.
At the end of the day, the blog is for you. I believe your intentions are good ones, especially since I know so many people who don't bother to be self-aware. And sometimes we have to talk about actions that the people we love do because we need help processing, understanding and dealing with them. You have never, in the time I've read here, been malicious. Sometimes our loved ones don't like to be talked about, but in the end, if you could, would you have talked to your friends about the topic?
I'm glad I came back to look at the other comments. I like what they said above a lot. See? The good side of blogging ;-).
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