Here's the thing about blogging

Recently I made it so the only person who could read my blog was me.

Don't take it personally.

I got lots of emails and messages wondering if it was you. It's not.

But here's the thing- blogging does weird things. Wonderful and weird things.

It's nice because you feel like you know people you've never met, like you do the characters in a well written book. You get a window into the lives of far away family and friends who you otherwise would remain unconnected to. You learn new insights and get fresh perspectives and ideas because it can be such a personal and intimate look into someones life as they detail their day to day journey. You relate to people in a similar stage of life as yourself and you can forge friendships of support through blogging comments alone.

And conversely, it can be hard to say what you really feel when you know it will be read and judged by people who may or may not be able or willing to understand your perspective, as a trusted friend would. You don't want to hurt any feelings or leave anyone out when documenting events.

Often times I will go to share something with someone and they give me the "I already read it on your blog" look.

I do this thing where I'm always wondering how everything affects other people, how will this particular person interpret this situation or post. Which I think is a beneficial filter to have going when what you write is a public forum.

But first and foremost, the blog has become my place to document my life. It is my journal and my scrapbook and my family history. So I have a need to be authentic, above anything else. I don't want to feel pressure to say things that I think will be well received, I want to say things as they really are. Sometimes I'm unmotivated, and uninspired, and I haven't done laundry that week and I ate chocolate cake for breakfast. And lunch. And then sometimes I study my scriptures everyday and keep a stellar scripture journal and make fresh salsa and scrub the baseboards and write my congressman, all before 9am. And I want to know what makes the difference. So I want to write about it. And for other people to be scrutinizing that learning process is a bit more than I'm comfortable with.

Am I the only one that finds the process crazy?...

-Spill your guts out there in cyberspace

-Wait for the comments to roll in over the next few days to see how you feel about how you felt

-Check sitemeter to see who's reading but not commenting.

That's actually not how I experience it, I'm not a sitemeter checker at all actually but I know that's how it goes for plenty of people. What a weird thing we're involved in here.

I am sort of a private person and this whole scene has always been a struggle for me.

Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned in the sense that communication is so much more rewarding when there is reciprocation. I too am insanely guilty of reading peoples thoughts and feelings without leaving them feedback of any kind. Almost without exception, if I am on the computer, I am breastfeeding so if I can't do it with one click, it's not gonna happen. But all of a sudden I found that I don't talk to people anymore because everybody feels like they know what's going on with me because they read my blog. Which is a little bit okay because we're all busy yelling at our kids. To come down for lunch. Not really yelling at our kids. (Yikes, who yells at their kids anymore? Now we just tell them they can't have their iphone with them at preschool that week). But I do miss the actual exchange of live relationships.

And that's why I closed down the bliggity blog. I told you it wasn't personal. It's all about my own weirdish worries. But after receiving numerous messages thinking it was, and late night phone calls from the very rudest and belligerent of readers, I decided I would re-open it.

But only under one condition. And that one condition has sub categories.

1) Promise to never be offended by anything I write.

2) If you do get offended, just promise not to write anything nasty about me on my locker or tell everyone that I peed the bed until I was 9 (authenticity people).

3) Try not to be a silent stalker. And I'll try not to do that either. Stalkers are for celebrities, and let's not kid ourselves, my life is just not that cool.

4) And lastly, try not to judge me in my extreme absurdity. Pretty much my entire goal for life is to continue down the path of becoming less and less of an idiot. So if you can help me do that somehow that would be great.