Thursday 20 May 2010

Oversharing, Undersharing, Somewhere in between

It's a week since I did a sort of interview with a very nice person talking about my lovely L.
Even though it was part of her coursework, we both took it very seriously, and I seemed to spend most of it being completely, perhaps far too, honest. I felt very comfortable so I just talked, but I didn't edit myself and a couple of hours later started wondering what I actually said.  I trust this person so am not concerned about her instincts on how and what to use, I think what I don't trust is me, or my very sieve-like memory when talking about the tough stuff (see, those tunnels again). And yet I haven't called to worry about what was in there, and in fact stand by how we left it, where I said if she wanted to talk more or dig further, I'd be happy to.
And strangely I am.
So since then I've been home alone with D on this business trip and have been the opposite to open, very quiet, very insular, although out and about but keeping it all locked in.  I've been having full nights of dreams and waking up exhausted without remembering a thing, which is my true sign of latent stress.
This week I also had an email flurry with a lovely old colleague/friend on facebook and she was utterly generous and kind about having read my blog and taken aback by how I didn't mention any of it when we last email blurted.
So then today I had lunch with a good friend and a kind and generous reader of this blog and listener to my woes.  And he said, because he's very wise and a writer so he notices stuff, that it must be weird, him knowing about things that I was referring to in our conversation, not because I've told him, but because I've written about it here.
And it is weird, but it's also what I've signed up to by doing all this.
I am committed to sharing things here, slowly but surely getting new followers and other blogging friends (like my new C18 buddies) reading what I'm writing.
It's not private, but it's sort of still in my control, because in a conversation with a like-minded person it's the stuff I'd probably talk about anyway.
I remember when I was younger my wonderful big cousin A telling me I had to stop telling everyone everything.  I think I was around 12 or so and was upset by girls being bitchy.
Since then over the years I've struggled with privacy and people knowing my business, a side-effect of coming from a close knit cultural community in a mid-sized city.
At University I worked out that as long as the original version of my news comes from my mouth, I didn't really mind where it went from there, because you just can't control everything.
I guess blogging is just an extension of that.
Where I draw the line is what I was thinking about doing the other day.  I took a photo of a couple of pages of my very private, very beloved journal.  Just to look in the cold light of day at how utterly insane these pages were, full of drawings and prayers and words and hopes and dreams and tears.
And I was going to add them to a post until I realised.
This purple wonderful book full of emotions, angry letters never sent, ultrasound photos, torn of bits of paper with words and ideas and dreams hastily written, along with the little pink moleskin pad I carry in my bag, are the only truly private things I have.
The unedited, unpurged, write as you find, it maybe different in a minute, real, visceral and "now/then" Sara.

I think I'll always dip in and out of the Overshare, and will continue to cherish and hide the Undershare.
I realise now however that maybe this blog will hover between the two.
Balancing between and trying to be true to its name...
Somewhere In Between

1 comment:

  1. I wonder about privacy too, since our full names are on there and we talk about medical stuff. Sometimes I wonder if I should at least change names, but that would take forever!!

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