Confessions of a Serial Swooper

I follow a number of blogs lately.  I’m sort of immersing myself in this weird, new culture and unless you are in it you probably have no godly idea how ridiculously huge the blog world really is.  Huge.  I’m something like two years behind the trend, too.  Women like me (and women not at all like me) have been blogging away, sharing thoughts and deep feelings and humor and intensely private things to total strangers across the world for a long time now.   (Men, too, but whatever)  There are blogs I read in which the writer has well over 500 readers, whose comments sections alone are much longer than most of  my entries.  I can’t decide if I’m jealous of those writers or if having that many people paying attention would totally freak me out.  I know it would freak my husband out.

Writing has always been something I love to do.  It’s in my blood.  My mother, who dabbled in some journalism, is a very talented writer.  Her own sisters’ resumes include Editor, The Boston Globe and Emmy-Winning Writer, All My Children.

I’m also an only child which means that while I crave attention I also crave my secrets.  I need something I can call my own (mine! mine! mine!).   And, as Husband has strongly suggested to me, there are just certain things that shouldn’t be shared to the larger audiences.   To me, these include intimate details of:  sex, someone else’s (read: Husband’s) career, true and scary marital issues…oh, and when you’re going on vacation.  Because you might get robbed.  Right?

Yesterday I read a blog titled “…and the horse you rode in on” in which the author talked about how much she couldn’t stand her husband.  And, I judged her for that.    Then, today I read a blog in which a woman stated that she and her husband “never fight”.  And, I judged her for that, too.

So, I guess my point is that blogging is a weird, weird thing.  I think that those who do it (including myself) are desperately seeking …something.  Listeners?  Validation?  “Followers”?  Feedback?   A voiceless Sounding Board?  It’s an intensely vain yet altogether vulnerable practice.

Do they like me?  Do they think I’m funny?  Annoying?  Full of myself?


Do I care?   Probably.

Either way, thank you.  All five to ten of you.  For being there.  For reading.    Thanks.