Since, I would say, the 2004 playoffs, I’ve had many more readers come to me every day than before that time. It’s a noticeable difference in managability, all that. But it’s also amazing, and I love it that you all visit me every day.<\/p>\n
I’ve been having thoughts recently, though, about blogging and myself as a blogger – and it is only in the past couple of months, because of this shift up in readers.<\/p>\n
Here is what has happened: I have become self-conscious. I think before I post. Especially if it’s something vulnerable, or sexy, or insecure. I wonder what people will think, I wonder if they will roll their eyes, like: “Oh Jesus, here goes Miss Drama Queen again”. And maybe some of you do. But really – my blog is not about pleasing the crowd, or being something other than who I am. (I’m working this out on my own, to myself, right now, not speaking to anyone in particular. This is something I have been struggling with on my own, internally, since I’ve gotten more readers.) I’m here, first and foremost, to write about what I want to write about when I want to write about it.<\/p>\n
I started blogging because I love to write, I need to write, and I thought it would be more healthy and fun to write out in the world, rather than in my private journal. Basically, it’s how I keep sane. I would be writing every day anyway<\/i>, but I thought, with this new blogging technology, that it was made for me.<\/p>\n
I stumbled my way through, and in the beginning only my family read me, my friends … My blog was very different in the beginning. I ranted about Sept. 11. It was much more political. I needed to vent, I needed an outlet. Etc. But then the fever-phase of that passed, as time went on … and I started to add more personal essays.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, this is when I started getting even more readers. I’m not a fool. I know I can tell a good story. And so people started linking to me, linking to the funny stories I posted. It was great.<\/p>\n
There was a tone to all of my story-posts in the beginning – and it happened a bit unconsciously, but I’m sure there was something conscious to it, too. I love to write down funny stories, I have a funny outlook on things at times, I notice<\/i> things … small human moments, etc.<\/p>\n
But then there’s the other side. I would call it the dark side. Well, maybe that’s too broad a brush. There is a dark side, but you’ll never see it here on this blog. I’m too shy to share it all that often, especially now, because I’ve got all these new readers. People I don’t know. This is why I prefaced my Angel Cards post a day or so ago with “Raw emotions here … be warned”.<\/p>\n
And my preference is: I do not want to “warn” people that I’m about to be open and raw anymore.<\/p>\n
It felt wrong when I wrote those words at the beginning of the Angel Cards post, it felt like a betrayal of myself or something and it still feels wrong. I’m not going to apologize beforehand for any “raw emotions” anymore. What I felt that I did in that moment was do what I have been doing all my life: apologize for being intense.<\/p>\n
“I know I’m intense, I’m sorry … Sorry … I’m intense.”<\/p>\n
This has crippled me, emotionally. I know this. I have worked so hard to stop doing it with people in my life, with the guys I’m interested in – and here I am doing it on my own blog<\/i>??<\/p>\n
This is my issue<\/i>. Nobody said to me: “You know, when you’re blogging, you should apologize beforehand for any intense posts.” This is me. It is also because of the general humorous teasing tone of most of my OTHER posts, and so I want to help my readers wtih the segue. Well, I am no longer going to “help with the segue”. Either you segue or you don’t, I can’t apologize anymore. If I sound passionate about this, or upset, it’s because it’s something I battle. Every day. I walk through life feeling like I am way too intense for public every-day consumption and I had better put a lid on it, or I will make people uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
I know it’s ridiculous that I’m saying that about my own blog, my own domain name, my own kingdom – but it’s true and I’ve got to get it off my chest.<\/p>\n
I am going to write what I want to write, and as the audience gets larger, I’m going to have more and more issues with this. I have this impulse to reveal<\/i>, and a conflicting impulse to conceal. I get shy. I get afraid of people’s comments.<\/p>\n
I posted the Angel Cards thing and was terrified at what people would say. I was scared that … I would be teased, maybe? Or that someone wouldn’t “get it”, or whatever. The comments that came from you people who did comment were absolutely lovely, and I felt so silly for being so trepidatious. But there ya have it. I’m not perfect, and I’m insecure about certain things.<\/p>\n
Many of you reading me now are new to me. Perhaps you don’t know this other side of me, and perhaps you are not interested. That’s fine. Perhaps you come to me for one reason, perhaps you come to me for another. (I’ve written about this before). My blog is so eclectic and moody, I couldn’t keep a one-topic blog if I tried. I know my Cary Grant fan-readers. They always comment when I post about him. I know my political junkie readers, or the readers who love science … I have all these different interests, and when I happen to post on these interests, suddenly there are the readers who love that stuff. I like to write long-ass essays about Bogart, about movies I’ve seen. I’m not a sound-bite kind of girl. I’m not Steven Den Beste, but I’m just not a sound-bite kind of girl. I like to write about what I’m reading about, and I like to open up the forum to hear everyone else’s reading lists.<\/p>\n
But what really<\/i> interests me? What really<\/i> floats MY boat? And after all, this is MY joint, nobody else’s, and if I don’t please MYSELF here, then what the fuck is the point? What really interests me is sharing stories from my life, telling stories, some funny, some sad, some angry, some stressed-out … I like to share what I long for, even though I know it probably makes my parents a bit sad for me, or worried about me. I like to share stories about Cashel, because it pleases me to do so. I have a TON of stories, as we all do. This is what makes life beautiful, and painful, and … what separates us from the beasts. We share our stories.<\/p>\n
This is why I blog.<\/p>\n
I must struggle, within myself, to not be shy anymore here, and not worry about how people will handle my “raw emotions”. I trust that if you don’t know what to say, then you won’t comment. Or you can put your thoughts into an email, as many many of you did after such posts as Angel Cards, and the Triumvirate of Men post (maybe the saddest post I ever wrote. I was terrified to put that one up as well!)<\/p>\n
But there will be no more pre-apologies for my intensity, or my rawness. I can no longer do that to myself. It’s not right. It’s a way of hurting myself, of selling myself down the river. No. No more. If someone makes a comment that rubs me the wrong way to one of those “raw” posts, then I’ll just feckin’ delete it. Very simple.<\/p>\n
Blogging is a way for me to keep connected to the world, to myself … it’s a way to be a part of this raucous chaotic community, a community that I absolutely love <\/i>… and it’s a way for me to work through some of my shit. I do that through writing, and I choose to do it here.<\/p>\n
You people who visit me every day are a huge part of my life, gotta tell ya. I love you for coming here, to read whatever it is I put up. Add your two cents, whatever. It never ceases to amaze me. This Internet thing. Really.<\/p>\n
But this post is a way to announce – to you, and to myself – that I am giving up my own shyness and self-consciousness – in what I post, and how I post – because it’s defeating the whole point of this venture, it’s me putting a lid on myself again. Protecting you from my dark side, my intensity … “Ooh, they won’t want to read that … they come here for other reasons … they don’t want to read that shit!”<\/p>\n
I am not saying that any of this is rational. To some degree, it isn’t.<\/p>\n
But rational or not, it’s the conversation I’ve been having in my head when I start to go about putting up more vulnerable posts. And I finally really noticed it with the Angel Cards post, and how much I hesitated putting that up. It is not rational, but it is real, and I thought that making it public might help combat those silly ghosts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since, I would say, the 2004 playoffs, I’ve had many more readers come to me every day than before that time. It’s a noticeable difference in managability, all that. But it’s also amazing, and I love it that you all … Continue reading