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blogging closet?

September 10, 2008 | me me me

Last night I had the strangest dream. It was about this blog. Obviously, I’m blogging far too much if I’m dreaming about it.

Anyway, for some reason in my dream, I had gotten all these hits from myspace. I rarely use myspace anymore and I don’t link to my blog from it either because I’m not too interested in the people I know in real life reading my blog. I know it will happen eventually but I’m not going to actively throw the information out there. If people I know find it, eh, it happens but I’d rather keep those judgey little hipsters and family members out of my brain, thank you very much.

Back to the dream.

I got all these hits from myspace and it turned out a girl I knew from GRADE SCHOOL and haven’t talked to in years found my blog and plastered my link it all over myspace and it was this big huge joke to everyone.

Weird, huh?

I’m not ashamed of anything I write on here. I’m very honest and pretty open about almost all aspects of my life. The only things I don’t really talk about are the nitty gritty of my family drama and my current relationship with William (boyfriend). I do mention both here and there but I’m not ready to throw all out of that out there for anyone to read. I have to draw the line somewhere between what’s blog material and what’s not and those are things that I feel are more personal.

So I guess I do worry about people in real life stumbling across this blog. I mean, a lot of what I write here, I don’t willingly open up and tell people. It’s a one way trip into my thoughts and I can’t make someone unread what they have read and forget all about it. You can’t help how someone else perceives you and to have such an unabashedly honest part of me out there is a little daunting.

But I put this blog out there willingly and did so with my face attached to my name so the day will come. It’s inevitable. If I’ll ever really be ready for it all to be out there and known, I’m not sure.

I’m willing to risk it though.

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Fuck her!!!! Does she have a blog? I doubt it. At least it bumped up your traffic. Hell, I found you!

Good luck and keep it up.

p.s. dreaming about your blog means you’re doing something right!

Melissa – haha thanks! The part about her finding it was just a dream though

I think bloggers in general are brave to put it out there. Like you said, once you say it, you can’t un-say it. You can’t make someone forget that little nugget of information about you. Don’t stop brave girl!

Chris will not be impressed with this gratuitous dream story.

That’s why you love me more. I’m nicer.

I have my moments of fear when it comes to blogging without anonymity, but fuck it. What happens, happens….my family already reads and supports so what else matters?

Yeah, I didn’t exactly know what to think when my fiance found my blog, but then I realized that I hadn’t written anything nasty about him in it, so I was ok. I’m just scared that someone from work will find it, but I don’t know how they ever could.

It still scares me, though.

i sometimes worry about my blog and think: “what if i’m denied employment because of this post about porn?”

but eff it. if people can’t handle it then its not my problem.

thanks for taking the risk! it makes a for a good distraction at work.

I think we’ve all thought about this one way or another over the past..

Honestly, I think about it on occasion and then go “eh, whateva.. screw ‘em”

except for colleagues. i just do NOT want them to know more about me than I’m willing to tell them

it’s a defense mechanism, I think.

I recently had my first “take that down! Mom will see it!” experience, which was really strange. At the same time I have actually reconnected with some old friends who found me online! I think people’s reactions say a lot more about them than it does you, and if someone saw something here that put them off they’d be nuts because everyone else is here with encouragement & baited breath!

Last night I had a dream that I was having coffee with Yoda and Obi-wan while my friend Colin chased butterflies in a field. I wonder what that means.

I don’t think there’s anything so bad on your blog that would stir up much trouble, but then again, I’m just a blog reader. I don’t know you in real life or your family or friends, so I don’t know how different you are from your blogging voice.

It’s a risk all of us bloggers take by putting ourselves out there. Hopefully it doesn’t bite us too hard in the ass later down the road.

I totally understand the fretting of the semi-anonymous blogger. At least it was only a dream.

There are DEFINITELY people out there I wouldn’t want reading my blog. Mainly people from my past that I don’t talk to anymore or fell out of touch with. It’s not that I have anything to be ashamed of. I just don’t want them knowing about me. But in the end, if they find it, eh well, the find it.

i definitely feel ya on the fretting, sometimes i worry that i put too much on my blog. hopefully i’m not and i still have some things to myself

I’ve actually dreamt about this, too, and it’s scary thinking someone you know in real life may see what you’ve written, especially if it kind of pertains to them. Which is why I don’t really talk about specifics on my blog for that matter.

I guess it’s the risk we take for putting ourselves out there.

That’s weird since that’s kinda what happened to me with my old blog “Princess Polly’s World” – the fact someone found it, printed copies of it out and passed it around work. Which could have made me look like a bit of a bitch as I said a lot of stuff about a couple of people i worked with at the time who i didn’t like. luckily no one took it the wrong way (apart from them) as pretty much everyone in the real world knew my feelings about these people anyway, but obviously I didn’t realise anyone I knew was going to read it. My point? Er – what was it? Yes, that’s it, from what I’ve read of your blog, you don’t have anything in it to be potentially ashamed of, it’s an interesting funny and witty blog and that’s obviously a very good thing. (Sorry for the rambling, I’m slightly intoxicated!)

I’m the same way, as far as letting other people know I have a blog. Most of my family and my good friends read it, but my friends that live in the same town as me, have no idea that I have a blog. My boyfriend doesn’t read it either. I hoping to keep it that way:)

That’s such a weird dream. I often hope that no one I know is reading my blog, but I try not to worry about it too much.

HAHA…yeah, I get worried that the people from the book that is face will find my blog.

Wait, I link to it.

Nevermind.

i think everyone feels like this sometimes. my real life is constantly intersecting with my blog (but i choose to tell most people about it). but that leads to awkward and uncomfortable situations. which seem to be growing by the day for me….but it comes with the territory I guess!

I know I never want people I know reading my blog. That would be a nightmare for me.

recently, I’ve been thinking about why I blog, besides the fact that I enjoy it. Today, I came across this quote from..ahem, Rev Run.
“Do you live your life like an open book? You should if you could set the right example, because the best gift you can give to others is sharing your life lessons, so take a page from your book of life and read it from the highest mountain for all to hear.”

And really, that has inspired me to give so much more.

(sometimes I’m afraid my family will discover my blog, especially where I talk about my dad’s alcoholism, but it happened to me and it’s happening to others, and if I can help one person feel less alone, then it’s worth it.)

I certainly do what I can to keep certain people (Mom, work peeps) from finding it, but I’ve given the url to a few friends and my Aunt. It was hard, I was nervous, I got blogging closet remorse, but I think it turned out well. I’ve given the people I love and trust a deeper look at who I really am. I can’t tell you what it’s like to blog something heavy and have my best friend just come up and hug me, without even having to explain it to her. I think I’m actually a better communicator when I write sometimes.

We have similar fears. Like you, I don’t mind if people find my blog, but I’m not going to wave in their faces either. Someday I’ll be fine with my real life friends and family reading it, but not yet.

It’s a scary thought – having all your personal writing available to family and friends. While there’s a lot of benefits to having people know your blog exists (its nice to be able to tell people what it is that you’re doing on the computer while typing like a crazy person) there’s also alot of judgement that comes with it. It’s like making a slideshow of your diary and putting it on the side of the family garage – extremely personal. I just recently started writing under my real name – and linking to my MySpace and Facebook and such and its pretty nerve-wracking. I hope it all works out for you! Love the blog btw.

everyone in my family knows about my blog and I often wish they didn’t so that I could write what I REALLY think about sometimes. That’s not tue, I’m pretty honest. But I’d never be able to write about my sex life or how I’m annoyed with someone cause they’d all know.

I completely COMPLETELY agree. While I’m not ashamed of anything that I write, I certainly don’t tell everyone IRL about it. I do sometimes get worried about someone finding it and completely losing my “anonymity”, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
& I’m glad you take the risk, as well, because I love your blog!

I think if people you know in real life were to ever discover your blog, they’d be delighted and fast fans!

Ha.

I had a dream/nightmare about my blog last night, too. Or, rather, my email. How weird.

A guy emailed me pretending to me a girl & I emailed back. My email address has my real last name & I’m the only “Ashley C……” in America.

He figured out what internet provider I was using and called the university where I work to find out where my office was. Then he stalked me after work.

It was really creepy.

Maybe it’s time to make a new blog-only email address?

Oops. Pretending to *be* a girl, not *me* a girl.

Gah.

It is a little frightening, isn’t it? I’ve invited my family to read certain posts and I’m banking on the hope that they’re not tech-savvy enough to realize that clicking on the header leads to the homepage, where they can scroll through the entire blog. I read something interesting in Wired magazine. A few years ago (or actually less than that), everyone was soooo paranoid about having all their personal info out there for people to see. Well, now that it’s out there and there’s nothing we can do about it, might as well try to present ourselves honestly.

I actually had a dream that I was totally outed, too! I woke up in the middle of the night and freaked out! I am much more anonymous that the average blogger, though… I think…

I sometimes wish I could go back to anonymity, take back using my first name and even my city. It’s tricky now because a few – a very few, but an important few – real friends read the blog. Tricky when I have a big@$$ crush on one of them. Sigh.

I have had those. And the real weird part is when they haven’t grown up at all.

have also had this kind of dream where someone finds out about my blog…and then when i wake up i’m not sure if it really happened or not.

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