Can you keep a secret?
"You are so public. You live your life SO public. Everyone knows everything about you."
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When I started this blog I knew there would be judgments made about me...against me. I knew in deliberately omitting names and details that certain stories would be open for interpretation and would leave some with more questions than they started with. My hope was always that my stories and experiences could help, inspire, educate, or at the very least - entertain.
I have been surprised along the way that people have used my blog as a way to fuel the story that plays on a loop in their own head. Their own issues and insecurities lead them to assume a post is about them - when most often it isn't. Friends have sometimes even called to ask if a post is about this person or that one guy. I've realized often times their insatiable desire for the details far supersedes the meaning behind the story.
Growing up I kept journals. My way of secretly communicating with the world. I learned early on how to play the crowd, how to make people laugh, how to be who I needed to be to "fit in", even stand out. But I never felt like myself. I always found solace in my room - away from the prying eyes and ferocious neediness of the outside world. My journals let me be me. My journals gave me a way out. I would write about the weather, other times a boy I liked who I knew didn't like me back, I discussed my battle with food and eventually I would use it to discuss my parents issues - the nights I thought would end in divorce, and the nights I wished would. As my father's acting out progressed, the more detail I wrote. At the height of my parents divorce both my father and I were in a game - who could get my mother on their side. I needed her to see he was a bad person. He needed her to believe I was crazy. He found my journals. He hit the jackpot. My father loved secrets, lived for them. He always loved knowing more than the other person, always having the upper hand. He would use these as a tool against me. In essence he used who I really was against me, proving that "being yourself" is not who I should be at all. In the safe space of my bedroom I let my guard down, he made sure I learned never to do that.
I never again wrote in a journal. I never again wrote anything that wasn't school assigned.
I learned at an early age to keep secrets. My father acted out when I was a small child, something that had years of consequences. I kept that secret until I was in college - 15 years. When my parents started having serious issues again when I was 11 and then subsequently divorced with my father walking out, I told no one until my senior year of high school - 5 years. As a young adult I would date an awful man - a situation only a couple people would know about for many years.
I spent a lifetime keeping secrets. I watched them destroy my family. I watched them destroy my father. I watched them try and destroy me. I learned early how to keep them. I learned early that being yourself meant being anyone else.
This blog is my second go round of journaling - only this time, I put out nothing that I'm not completely ready to be out there, nothing that I'm not willing to discuss. I'm okay with the stories, it doesn't matter to me if anyone else is. My original hope was that people would get something out of them, but sometimes all they got was an assumption and an accusation. I've realized that what I really want is a dialogue, a way to communicate. The good, the bad, or the ugly - I'll take it as long as people are talking. Talk to me, talk with me, talk about me. I'm okay with all of it. Just keep talking.
There is a difference between privacy and secrecy. I am a private person, but maybe to some I am still "so public". However, everyone does not know "everything" about me. But what they do know is who I really am - the good parts, the ugly parts, the scary parts. They're all there. I'm just choosing to no longer play to the crowd. I'm choosing to use the thing someone once used as a weapon against me as one of my greatest assets.
This is still my way of communicating with the world - just not so secretly anymore.
Be yourself.
I am.
----------------
When I started this blog I knew there would be judgments made about me...against me. I knew in deliberately omitting names and details that certain stories would be open for interpretation and would leave some with more questions than they started with. My hope was always that my stories and experiences could help, inspire, educate, or at the very least - entertain.
I have been surprised along the way that people have used my blog as a way to fuel the story that plays on a loop in their own head. Their own issues and insecurities lead them to assume a post is about them - when most often it isn't. Friends have sometimes even called to ask if a post is about this person or that one guy. I've realized often times their insatiable desire for the details far supersedes the meaning behind the story.
Growing up I kept journals. My way of secretly communicating with the world. I learned early on how to play the crowd, how to make people laugh, how to be who I needed to be to "fit in", even stand out. But I never felt like myself. I always found solace in my room - away from the prying eyes and ferocious neediness of the outside world. My journals let me be me. My journals gave me a way out. I would write about the weather, other times a boy I liked who I knew didn't like me back, I discussed my battle with food and eventually I would use it to discuss my parents issues - the nights I thought would end in divorce, and the nights I wished would. As my father's acting out progressed, the more detail I wrote. At the height of my parents divorce both my father and I were in a game - who could get my mother on their side. I needed her to see he was a bad person. He needed her to believe I was crazy. He found my journals. He hit the jackpot. My father loved secrets, lived for them. He always loved knowing more than the other person, always having the upper hand. He would use these as a tool against me. In essence he used who I really was against me, proving that "being yourself" is not who I should be at all. In the safe space of my bedroom I let my guard down, he made sure I learned never to do that.
I never again wrote in a journal. I never again wrote anything that wasn't school assigned.
I learned at an early age to keep secrets. My father acted out when I was a small child, something that had years of consequences. I kept that secret until I was in college - 15 years. When my parents started having serious issues again when I was 11 and then subsequently divorced with my father walking out, I told no one until my senior year of high school - 5 years. As a young adult I would date an awful man - a situation only a couple people would know about for many years.
I spent a lifetime keeping secrets. I watched them destroy my family. I watched them destroy my father. I watched them try and destroy me. I learned early how to keep them. I learned early that being yourself meant being anyone else.
This blog is my second go round of journaling - only this time, I put out nothing that I'm not completely ready to be out there, nothing that I'm not willing to discuss. I'm okay with the stories, it doesn't matter to me if anyone else is. My original hope was that people would get something out of them, but sometimes all they got was an assumption and an accusation. I've realized that what I really want is a dialogue, a way to communicate. The good, the bad, or the ugly - I'll take it as long as people are talking. Talk to me, talk with me, talk about me. I'm okay with all of it. Just keep talking.
There is a difference between privacy and secrecy. I am a private person, but maybe to some I am still "so public". However, everyone does not know "everything" about me. But what they do know is who I really am - the good parts, the ugly parts, the scary parts. They're all there. I'm just choosing to no longer play to the crowd. I'm choosing to use the thing someone once used as a weapon against me as one of my greatest assets.
This is still my way of communicating with the world - just not so secretly anymore.
Be yourself.
I am.