Change is hard. Focus is a problem. So yesterday, much to my imagined disappointment of everyone, I shut down everything – No Facebook, no Twitter, no blogging. While I was doing it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold out, since I’ve been doing it for so many years as a habit. But the primary reason I want to not blog isn’t to stop blogging, just to keep people from reading what I write.
So I think I’m going to keep blogging, just in private. My own little journal. That way, I can write what I think and feel, and screw whatever someone might think about it, since they won’t be able to read it.
Too often lately, I’ve had things to say that I don’t write because of the chance of offending someone. Recently, yesterday, the catalyst of this current “madness” if truth now must be told, Berta told me something I wrote about stay at home moms apparently offended one of my neighbors enough that she made specific mention of it while they were out. Maybe it was this post which had nothing to do with this particular neighbor, who I only think about as often as I see her passing in a car, and not nearly as much as the nameless, faceless parents that I complain about in that post who directly affect my life. And so now, it’s all gone.
There are also some things I’ve just been aching to write about but can’t because they’re intensely personal. These are things I don’t mind sharing with certain friends, but there are people close to me that I’d rather, for one reason or another, keep in the dark. This one isn’t the post for that, but making everything new private is much more conducive to allowing me to record and express these things.
I started this site for me, and have adamantly stated that I write it for me on many occasions. It’s a journal of things I’ve done and what I’ve thought that I’ve always expected to leave behind when I’m dead. Let the kids read about what I thought when they were born. Remind Berta how much I love her and the other people in my life. These topics are some I’d share with others gladly, except I can’t seem to do so - to be and express myself - without making enemies of anyone with an opposing view. Maybe the response is irrational, I don’t know.
The second reason for all of this is to gain a little focus. The social networks are distracting. Even in the short time I’ve had them off so far, I’ve had the draw to say random things on Twitter. It’s a constant impetus to share every last detail of life online, and constantly interrupt actually having a life. I think maybe other people have figured that out, or are more tempered with it. I never really cared how much was going out - in fact, I still don’t. But I see that it’s a huge distraction for me, and whether cold turkey is best or lasts or even affects the focus problem at all, it’s the current plan.
People responding to my exit post from Facebook, trying to draw me back in… It’s interesting what little interaction I have with anyone, how everyone craves what is - I wouldn’t say “ingenuine” - just “solely virtual”. We cling maybe too much to these virtual relationships, and I think that when I really look at my life and who my friends are, too many of them are these virtual phantoms. I have always craved something more real, and it’s perhaps it’s time to put up or shut up.
So that’s the deal. I’m considering sharing this post with a handful of people. I have a serious concern about checks and balances on my sanity. I want everyone to know I’m ok without having to broadcast a social network ping every hour. I want to be able to write things I care about and have people I care about read them. And when I’m through reinventing who I am, or what I’m doing, or whatever… Then I’ll just turn off the privacy on all these posts and things may return to a new normal.
