Nov
1
This post at Letters to a Birthmother and Dawn’s response made me think about the journey I’ve had with my blog over the years. Next month it will be 6 years (really? Huh) since I started writing about anything at all for a public audience. To be kind, my writing’s changed a lot over that time.
I started out being honest. I wrote honestly about my feelings of inadequacy while being a new parent (and, let’s face it, a very, very old one). I wrote honestly about certain events that happened in my life with people I initially trusted and loved (note the past tense here…if you’re reading this you know I don’t mean you. Of course I don’t mean you). I wrote about how hard it was to be a parent and having the brutal fact that I wasn’t my child’s real parent constantly in my face at every turn.
I don’t write that way anymore.
First of all, all those things came back to bite me in the ass. Hard enough to draw blood. Over time, I ceased using adoption as my sole blog topic and started writing about politics. Then I wrote about our adoption experience in locked/password-protected posts. Now, confident that the only people who read my blog either have been reading for a long time or are our local gossips (more about that in a minute), I write about our adoption. Sporadically.
One issue that we have here at Chez Evil is that School Girl is older. She’s, well, in school. Her adoption story is for her own damn blog, thankyouveryfsckingmuch. If her friends can’t find this blog in a Google search – and even though I blog pseudonymously, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out exactly who I am – her parents can. Some of them have. You, both of my darling readers, don’t have to think about how this all will affect my child. I do.
I am fairly open about certain things in my life which might not be the norm, or even socially acceptable. Yes, I’ll be writing a little about that giant red A in the sidebar another day. I don’t give a damn about what anyone thinks of me. I do, however, care very much what others think about our child. I have never ever held myself up as an example to others. Not that it’s not a good thing for other people. I’m just not that good a person to use as an example for anybody’s life. Well, okay, a bad one perhaps.
There was once a famous daddy blogger; who is, alas, no longer writing due to personal circumstances. He gave me a great piece of advice about writing honestly about your life. Basically it was this: You have to pick and choose what to write about for the sake of real-life relationships. As his example, he said he no longer wrote about his or his wife’s extended families. If that’s being less than honest…well hey, there’s plenty of other blogs out there.
anything you choose to write about or not is alright by me, Hester Prynne *wink*
not to preempt you on atheism but I’m ambivalent about being militant about it.
It’s okay! All someone has to do is click on the A and they’ll figure it out anyway. I’m just not sure what I want to write yet – although I’ve mentioned nonbelief more than once here.
Thanks for this response.
Thank you so much for your visit.
how long am i going to have to keep telling you that you’re not old?
I think the word for my kind of mother is “geriatric”.
Quit it, you…
I’m not that far behind you, and i am not going quietly!
*tightest hugs*
Yeah, but you didn’t start out when you were older than dirt.
*huge hugs* Glad you’re back!