Censored
May 01
Censored
Congratulations to my friend Nicole for making the What’s your Story? list this week! It’s a grand honor that has been bestowed onto her, and just in time for her 32nd birthday! I was among the lucky ones to be invited to read her blog from the beginning. Before she started though, we had been pen pals for a while. When I was featured on Whats your story in November, she became a loyal reader and we began exchanging emails. We discovered that we have so much in common and before long, we became fast friends. She takes the most amazing pictures of her life, her babies (cats and dog) and Victor her hubby, and is very devoted to writing on almost a daily basis. I love reading her entries, because there is so much diversity in her writing. She can go from serious family matters, to funny humor about her animals or her gnomes. I just love her.
She was smart from the beginning. I wish I would have gone about things the way she did. When she was asked to be featured on MSN’s best of blogs list, she was excited beyond words, as I was, and she wanted to share the honor with her family and friends. I went through the same feelings. I wanted to tell the world that I was featured on MSN! I chose to tell my parents and my sister and a few close friends that I trusted with my private life and happenings. What Nicole did that I didn’t do, was to ask that her family and friends only read the week she was featured, and to respect her privacy after the week was over. She invited them to join her in her excitement, and trusted them with her private thoughts.
It’s hard to get people you are close to, to understand that you want your privacy when you are putting it all out there for anyone to read. I compare it to leaving your diary out in the open at home, and expecting that no one in your family will look inside. Blogs are more like leaving your diary on a popular street somewhere. You probably wouldn’t mind if someone you don’t know picked it up and read it, but if someone you know finds it- its hard to deal with. There are trust issues there. It’s hard because it’s a choice you personally make, and you expect that people will play by your rules. But it doesn’t work that way.
If I had thought more about the consequences, I would never have invited my family to read my blog. I find myself holding back a lot in my writing now that I know they read. I know it was like handing a kid a cookie and saying now don’t eat the whole thing, just take a bite, when I let them in on my blog. Honestly though, I didn’t think they would take the time to go back through my old entries and read EVERYTHING...but they most likely did. At one point I went back through some old entries and actually censored them to save my parents from worrying about me. I hate that I did that, because it is MY journal! I am fully regretting inviting my parents to read, because of the self censoring and PG writing I have changed to since being featured.
People have a natural tendency to wonder, especially parents with their kids. I fully understand their need to know, but I wonder if it is even worth it to them now that they are inside my head where I don’t want them to be. I am guilty of snooping in the past, where I wasn’t supposed to look, and found out some things that I was probably better off knowing in the end, but at the time I wished I hadn’t looked. I know they found my blog behind my back last year when I wrote on blogger.com, and that is the main reason I moved it to MSN. I didn’t want my parents to read my private journal. The difference is this time is that I invited them to look, trusted that they understood not to read before or after that week I was featured, I guess I was naïve to think they would respect my privacy after giving them access. Now instead of a blog that comes straight from my head, there are filters on my private thoughts, and it’s written for everyone. I want it back, the privacy I used to have. I wonder if the same thing will happen to Nicole this week. I hope it doesn’t because it will change a lot, as did with my blog. I hope her family respects her wishes and discontinues reading after her week.
One thing I learned with the whole experience. Sometimes you just need your privacy- from family, and need to keep your thoughts your own. Sometimes you need to have secrets for yourself. My parents definitely do not need to know everything about my life, but I know they want to. I invited them to read, that is my fault entirely and I do regret it. Some advice to fellow bloggers: keep your blog private from people that you know personally, you will be a happier blogger in the long run. But whats done is done, and I can't change it now. Hindsight is 20/20 right? Ce la vie.
Good luck Nicole, I hope everything works out. You are definitely still one of my favorite blog buddies. I am planning to vote for you as much as I possibly can this week!
(¯`v´¯)
`*.¸.*´
¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•. jenni
Censored
Congratulations to my friend Nicole for making the What’s your Story? list this week! It’s a grand honor that has been bestowed onto her, and just in time for her 32nd birthday! I was among the lucky ones to be invited to read her blog from the beginning. Before she started though, we had been pen pals for a while. When I was featured on Whats your story in November, she became a loyal reader and we began exchanging emails. We discovered that we have so much in common and before long, we became fast friends. She takes the most amazing pictures of her life, her babies (cats and dog) and Victor her hubby, and is very devoted to writing on almost a daily basis. I love reading her entries, because there is so much diversity in her writing. She can go from serious family matters, to funny humor about her animals or her gnomes. I just love her.
She was smart from the beginning. I wish I would have gone about things the way she did. When she was asked to be featured on MSN’s best of blogs list, she was excited beyond words, as I was, and she wanted to share the honor with her family and friends. I went through the same feelings. I wanted to tell the world that I was featured on MSN! I chose to tell my parents and my sister and a few close friends that I trusted with my private life and happenings. What Nicole did that I didn’t do, was to ask that her family and friends only read the week she was featured, and to respect her privacy after the week was over. She invited them to join her in her excitement, and trusted them with her private thoughts.
It’s hard to get people you are close to, to understand that you want your privacy when you are putting it all out there for anyone to read. I compare it to leaving your diary out in the open at home, and expecting that no one in your family will look inside. Blogs are more like leaving your diary on a popular street somewhere. You probably wouldn’t mind if someone you don’t know picked it up and read it, but if someone you know finds it- its hard to deal with. There are trust issues there. It’s hard because it’s a choice you personally make, and you expect that people will play by your rules. But it doesn’t work that way.
If I had thought more about the consequences, I would never have invited my family to read my blog. I find myself holding back a lot in my writing now that I know they read. I know it was like handing a kid a cookie and saying now don’t eat the whole thing, just take a bite, when I let them in on my blog. Honestly though, I didn’t think they would take the time to go back through my old entries and read EVERYTHING...but they most likely did. At one point I went back through some old entries and actually censored them to save my parents from worrying about me. I hate that I did that, because it is MY journal! I am fully regretting inviting my parents to read, because of the self censoring and PG writing I have changed to since being featured.
People have a natural tendency to wonder, especially parents with their kids. I fully understand their need to know, but I wonder if it is even worth it to them now that they are inside my head where I don’t want them to be. I am guilty of snooping in the past, where I wasn’t supposed to look, and found out some things that I was probably better off knowing in the end, but at the time I wished I hadn’t looked. I know they found my blog behind my back last year when I wrote on blogger.com, and that is the main reason I moved it to MSN. I didn’t want my parents to read my private journal. The difference is this time is that I invited them to look, trusted that they understood not to read before or after that week I was featured, I guess I was naïve to think they would respect my privacy after giving them access. Now instead of a blog that comes straight from my head, there are filters on my private thoughts, and it’s written for everyone. I want it back, the privacy I used to have. I wonder if the same thing will happen to Nicole this week. I hope it doesn’t because it will change a lot, as did with my blog. I hope her family respects her wishes and discontinues reading after her week.
One thing I learned with the whole experience. Sometimes you just need your privacy- from family, and need to keep your thoughts your own. Sometimes you need to have secrets for yourself. My parents definitely do not need to know everything about my life, but I know they want to. I invited them to read, that is my fault entirely and I do regret it. Some advice to fellow bloggers: keep your blog private from people that you know personally, you will be a happier blogger in the long run. But whats done is done, and I can't change it now. Hindsight is 20/20 right? Ce la vie.
Good luck Nicole, I hope everything works out. You are definitely still one of my favorite blog buddies. I am planning to vote for you as much as I possibly can this week!
(¯`v´¯)
`*.¸.*´
¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•. jenni
posted by Jenni at
7:53 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home