When I started this blog I told my self that it would be a fun creative outlet. I had a vision for the content; I saw a blog full of parody and satire of pop culture. I thought it could be a place for me to synthesize the ideas I get that don’t seem like they have anywhere to go, and normally end up lost to me forever. I thought that I could control what this blog was going to be. The interesting thing is the effect this blog has had on me. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but I became consumed with the idea of other people looking at my blog. At first it was just a weird awareness that, though likely no one would ever read my blog, there was a chance for any one in the world could come across what I had put out there. I like to check out bogs with names I find interesting and when I would find ones I liked I would comment. Things got out of hand when I my comments began to get replies.
Many people I know say they are jealous of me because, based on the fact that I can pretty much take or leave any chemical substance, I seem to have a non-addictive personality. The thing is I am hooked on something: attention. Getting feedback, being recognized in any way by someone else out there, made me feel good.
I recognized a while ago that in general my self-esteem is directly related to what other people think of me. I have worked on defining what I can do to make my self-proud of the life I am living and living to that definition. I thought I had let go of the person who needs validation from others to give meaning to the things she does. And then I started blogging.
I got to the point where the first thing I checked when I got on line was not my e-mail but my site meter statistics. I began to leave comments in hopes that it would draw others to my site. (Just so you know the comments I left were all on sites that were interesting to me, but instead of leaving them as simple, genuine signs of respect I wanted the attention I was giving out to return to me.) I was out of control tryin to get a fix. I realized what I was doing and felt ashamed. Just so you know being an attention junkie is not a part of living the life of my dreams. Thinking about the intention behind my actions absolutely disgusted me.
At first I thought about deleting the whole blog, just run away and try to forget that it had ever existed. But that had been a part of who I had been before… blocking my self out of the areas of life I felt I couldn’t excel in, avoiding people I couldn’t please with my act… so I decided to face the blog. I decided I needed to be honest with my self and honest in this blog. Because even if no one ever reads it, even if it is encountered by people who don’t know who I am, it is still an aspect of my life. And in order to live healthy I must be authentic in every aspect, every moment of my life. (That is, in a nutshell, what I decided my best life would look like by the way.)
But then the idia of being truthful in this blog started to get me sick. Because, though I do have a need to be this touchy feely sap, there is also a part of me that loves deconstructing reality TV and making fun of the mainstream. If I was going to be real, I reasoned, I should just start a truth telling blog.
And then I realized I was on the other side of the looking glass as I had met my jabberwocky. I was taking the same approach to blogging that I had in every other aspect of my life. I was separating every part of my self and putting those parts into a divided lunchroom tray, never letting one part touch another. Well that ends here.
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