Feelings, nothing more than feelings

Long time no see, eh? I know, I know, I have been super lax in writing. Finding time and topics to write about aren’t as easy as I first anticipated. I could talk to you about the BBQ beef I ate for lunch, or the waitress at Goose Island who looks just like my friend from 6th grade, but I have a feeling those topics interests no one, including myself. I’m starting a new project for work soon involving injecting drugs users, so I imagine that will provide me with some life commentaries.
I wrote a blog entry about a week ago. It was about looking to the future and things men and women have to think about as they get older. It was a little more personal than I usually write, so after having it posted for about 3 hours, I took it down. I felt naked and vulnerable and uncomfortable. It wasn’t anything that private, most people who know me probably know my thoughts about the future anyway, but for some reason, I was really uncomfortable having that information up there for all to see and reference. Which brings me to my point. If I’m not going to share a little private piece of myself, why blog in the first place? I once asked my mother if she read my blog. She said no. She said that it wasn’t me, and she didn’t want to read my diary and my private thoughts. I reassured her I never really put anything too private up and she counter by asking, “Well then why do it?” I didn’t have a good answer, though I pretended like I did so that she wouldn’t think herself smarter than I…I doubt she was convinced. From most blogs I read, people don’t really put too much of themselves out there. They don’t talk about their secret dreams, their crushes, their devastations. Yet, I still enjoy reading them. Maybe what we need from a blog is to be filled in on the simple details and opinions of our friends on a daily (or weekly or monthy) basis. As for the big stuff, well, that’s what phones and road trips are for. Maybe by putting the really big emotions into a blog, we render one on one communication useless. Why call Cindy Lu to find out about how she feels about her new romance when I can just read it in her blog? I don’t actually think this is why we don’t put down the intimate details in blog format. I actually think it is because once you put that information out there for all to see, and there is a permanent record of how you feel; you can never deny that feeling. You can’t deny you were scared or hurt or elated. Everyone already knows. You have no more secrets and you have no more barriers. Maybe a world filled with people with their guard down would be a better place, but I, for one, am not about to be the first to start.