The secret blogger... or not.

I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning. On a Sunday no less. And now I can't go back to sleep. The cat got out of the bag yesterday. I can't stop thinking about it, and then I think about why it I can't stop thinking about it. So course I'm just going to blog about it.

My little blog isn't read by many people. My biggest spike was when I begged people to visit and share some Going Green Wisdom. I do post updates on Twitter and when I do blog comments. Nothing major, but it's out there if you are in the same place that I am in cyberspace. I also share a link on Facebook, where most of my readers come from. So most people already know me. For the most part, it's people from high school or friends I don't really get to see or talk to much. It's a nice way for us to connect. A few are the polar opposite- total strangers. And I'm good with that. It's always been a part of my world. I've been on the internet chatting about life with internet friends for more than 10 years now. My online friends have become REAL friends and that was at a time when it was a little more weird-- a little more "creepy." I've met quite a few In Real Life (IRL) and have kept in touch with others over the phone or email. Many of them agonized with my over wedding details, which then became baby details, which then became, well, life in general details. The Stranger or I've-Never-Seen-Your-Face-For-Real thing is totally cool with me.

So the Cat. The Bag.

Yesterday as I was supervising my dad and BigDaddy on the PW's garden bed construction, when a friend/coworker of BigDaddy's stopped by. A FaceBook "friend" of mine, a lurker here. We were all hanging out, admiring the beds, and playing with the kiddos when The Boss' Wife came by (as in BigDaddy's Boss and our neighbor and my new friend, one of my only friends here). I had called her earlier in the day to ask for some input on where we should put the garden beds. She promised to stop by on her way home to check them out. I adore The Boss' Wife (TBW). She's funny, down-to-earth, easy to talk to- good people. So the friend mentions something about my blog to her. I lost my breath. ooooooh nooooooooooo! I saw the train wreck. I tried to shoo it away, then shrug it off, then totally redirect the conversation. (Picture the Side-to-Side Foot Shift Shuffle for full effect) Then flat out I mumbled something like "I don't want to talk about this right now and most people don't know about it and I don't tell people about it and even my dad doesn't know about it okay." Then I think I ran into a cardboard box and shivered in the corner. I've blacked out the rest. But it was over. The damage was done. "You have a blog?!" OMFG.

Later after TBW left, we were inside the house and he mentioned it AGAIN, in front of, drum roll please....MY DAD. Kill me now. please. No, really. PLEASE. Apparently my rant above didn't hit home. Then he threw out the big whopper (and not my favorite yummy kind of Whopper) "So you'd rather have strangers reading about your life than people you know?" (or something to that affect. It's seriously filed in that not-so-happy place in my brain that I can't access.) the answer to his question. Yes. Yes, I'm more comfortable with strangers reading my blog, kinda. It's that fine line. Strangers are fine here. Welcome Strangers!! Think of AA. the key word here is ANONYMOUS. Strangers. as in people that don't know me. I'm also good with people who actually know me, but don't see me IRL or have any effect in my day-to-day activities. OR people who are so close to me that they know all The Uglies. Or my internet friends. But NOT TBW. I just wasn't there yet, you know? It's not that I complain about BigDaddy's work at all or say anthing that would get him in trouble/fired if it got to his co-workers or boss. In fact, I've never seen him loving his job so much. ever. but I wasn't ready to share so much, this much. Not yet. and NOT MY DAD. The fact that my parents aren't very tech savvy is a big bonus for my sister and I. 'Nuff said.

Now I feel like a total jerk. If I open up this blog to them, I feel a bit (well, a lot) exposed. If I don't share this world, my world, it seems like I don't want them around me or like I don't want to talk to them about stuff that matters in my life. And if I don't pass along the link now, they already know my big dark secret exists and it looks like I'm holding out. If you aren't a part of the internet blog/Twitter/chat/discussion board world this probably makes no sense that I'm guarded in a totally public, open arena. And no, Facebook doesn't count. It's like all the people that claimed they were on the internet, but were really just surfing around on AOL. FB is a really a vanilla, watered down version of sharing your life on the 'net. And it's protected for the most part.

I love blogging now. But this certainly has morphed into something very different from my first posts in January that were mainly my food journal and what I ate or was going to eat. So full disclosure? Not sure if I'm there yet. I'm not in a place where I want to include my blog in every email I send. Comments on other blogs, yah, I'm good with that and I like to find other blogs that way.

I think I'll beg for visitors again... strangers, friends, people in between: If you blog, how do you handle this and what do you do? If you need to get a hold of me, I'll be in the cardboard box next to my lovely raised garden beds.