I've never really viewed myself as a private person. My heart has made its permanent residence on my sleeve for most of my adult life, for better or worse. So it came as something of a surprise to me that my finger hovered in mid-air when it came time to hit "PUBLISH POST" on my first blog entry.
Starting a blog seemed like a brilliant plan when the idea came to me. I spent lots of time reading books about how to blog (yes, I know what a geek I am, thank you very much), creating my list of 40 items, picking out the perfect cupcake picture to use (isn't it GREAT?), etc., etc. Not to mention all the tweaking I did in creating my first post...I felt pretty comfortable that it sounded good...sounded like me, anyway (after about 20 revisions).
But when it came time to cast my ideas out into the abyss of the Internet, well, my finger got stuck. I didn't really expect some random stranger to read The Cupcake Countdown and leave scathing comments, but nevertheless, it made me feel very vulnerable. Which is the point of doing it at all, I suppose.
Sharing your thoughts.... sharing any piece of yourself, is dangerous business ... because it opens you up to the opinions of the world at large. (Even if the world at large consists of the people in one's address book.) However, isn't that what we are here to do? If we are to get anything worthwhile out of life, that is. I think this pressure hinders us because we all want so badly to appear perfect --- to appear to have everything together, at least to everyone from the outside. When the reality is that life is just plain messy--everyone makes some terrible mistakes from time to time, we all act in ways that we can't take back once in a while, and you can NOT always have a good hair day, no matter how hard you try. In her blog, Ordinary Courage, Brene Brown writes some interesting thoughts about the courage that it takes to show other people who we really are, in all of our glorious messiness. http://www.ordinarycourage.com/my-blog/2009/2/11/brenes-home-for-wayward-girls.html This gave me some courage. And after a few deep yoga breaths, I managed to get that finger to hit PUBLISH.
So I will continue to share...even when I am uncertain about how others will respond, even on the days that my ideas do not feel anything but messy. Because it feels good to practice being brave, to practice being ME. And because I feel certain those will be the days my hair looks great.
You do leave alot out there when you open up but it can also be a good form of therapy. I think what you'll find is that alot of other people are thinking and experiencing the same things as you. Life is messy but that's why we have good spouses!
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