Blogging: The risks and benefits

I love to blog. I've always been big on journals, but Jason reads those. I guess since this is online, he doesn't see a point in reading it. I wouldn't really care if he did, I suppose. The other thing is that typing doesn't hurt my hands, and the blog can't get lost.

I love that I can get advice, feedback, and support by blogging. That's probably the biggest "pro" of blogging. That and the whole networking thing. I have met a lot of awesome people, both online and in "real life" via my blog.

The downsides of having a public blog... When starting a blog, you go in with one of the following mindsets:

• Make blog private and speak your mind
• Make blog public and censor everything you say
• Make blog public and risk upsetting people you blog about

I made the 3rd choice. My blogging philosophy is this: I blog for me. The website is for everyone else, the blog is for me. It's therapeutic, it helps me sort my thoughts, and it gets things off my chest. I can read back months later and say "Wow, I made it through a hell of a hard time."

I blog about people I know, and my relatives. I blog about other bloggers. I rarely use real names (especially friends' kids names) or post pics of them though.

I say what I think, and I write while angry. I rant and rave sometimes, and say things that I don't see as offensive or hurtful, but others do. I guess it's the risk you take... But you know, myblog is my safe place where I can voice my feelings and frustrations. I can't see censoring everything.

I have a friend who means a lot to me. A long time ago, I blogged about a situation we had between our children that had made me very uncomfortable and sad. I didn't say anything to her, just let off some steam in the blog then a few hours later deleted the post, realizing how angry I had sounded. It was mentioned again in a later post, but I didn't see anything offensive there and left that up. Most of the post was about how great it was to see my friend and her family again and how much fun we were having.

I guess I didn't think about the result of my friend reading that post, and how she would feel. She doesn't know me well enough to know that my way of getting "rid" of something that is bothering me is to write it down, or that my post was never meant to be read by her, or to hurt her. I love her, her son, and everyone else in their family.

Her son is special needs too, a different type than Jaymes. He is not entirely in control of his behavior. I know this. I love the kid in spite of the bad times (I used to watch him, and we had some moments!) same way I love Jaymes even when I want to strangle him. Normally, I'd have just let it roll off like I always did... But it was at a time in our lives that so many people, kids and adults, had snubbed Jaymes or put him down and I was feeling that protective "mama bear" emotion. The situation cut me deeply, and I couldn't stop thinking about it and being sad about it until I had written it down and gotten it out of my system.

I know my friend's son didn't mean anything by anything he said, and he didn't understand the hurtfulness. He experienced the same thing from his own peers, which I got to witness at Target (and wanted to throttle the little bastards who were calling him names and teasing him). I don't know why it got to me so much, but it did.

And so, as i always do, I blogged. I shouldn't have, I guess. I should have kept it to myself, but i suppose it didn't occur to me my friend would read it (those things never do occur to me, though they should!) and be hurt. She handled it the same way I did- by not saying anything, and I didn't know until today that it had been an issue. I've been so busy with my own insanity lately that I haven't had time to think about friends.

I hate to think that my venting ruined a relationship I value over most others... I can't blame my friend for being upset, and if she feels my mistake was truly unforgivable, I can't blame her for wanting to end the friendship. I hope we can work it out, who knows... Either way, she and her family will always be dear to me, and the only thing I miss about the state of Florida.

So yeah. I fucked up badly. I feel terrible about it. I hope I didn't ruin a friendship that meant so much to me.

I'll always remain true to myself though, in blogging. The day I start censoring my posts to exclude anything that could potentially hurt someone is the day my blogging will fail to give me that relaxation and therapy I so badly need.

I think that in the future, I do need to use some more restraint though, and not publish posts until I'm done being upset. That way I can read back through them and decide if the post really needs publishing or if the act of writing it helped me enough. Moments of anger are not something I want to look back on.