Thoughts on Sharing Secrets

On Saturday night, Ty and I told one of his close friends (hereinafter "Mike") about my blog, over a dinner of slow-cooked Texas-style beef brisket, sweet potatoes, spinach, and good red wine. My best friend (hereinafter "C.S.") was also there. Mike had looked down at his plate for a few seconds, and Ty promptly seized the opportunity to mouth the word "Blog?" to me across the table with a quizzical expression on his face. Having had a full two sips of red wine, I was a little slow on the uptake, and by the time I understood what he was talking about, Mike had looked up and realized that we were engaged in a rude-married-person-secret-discussion at the dinner table.

So, we told him that I started a blog. C.S., ever supportive and loyal, immediately piped up "It's really good." (I should mention here that she recently suffered a blow to the head.) I blushed in embarrassment, yet the exhibitionist in me was secretly delighted. Then, I started to worry.

While I have discussed many things with Mike that I wouldn't discuss with just anybody, he is NOT privy to the exact color and consistency of my vaginal discharge (just in case there was ever any doubt, Ty). I am, by nature, a very private person with an odd streak of exhibitionism. The desire to keep quiet and the desire to talk create tension within me. I therefore will have to give some serious thought to what things I want to share with the Internet and what things are just for me, given that some people I know will be reading this.

I hope that the exercise of writing this blog will clarify these boundaries for me. There will surely be a few missteps along the way; I anticipate that I will regret (and possibly retract) certain entries, while others I will post after a great deal of deliberation, only to discover that nobody is particularly fazed by what I have just written.

I am fairly certain that this blog will bring me closer to C.S. I also think, overall, that it will bring me closer to Ty, though probably not in as smooth and continuous an arc as with C.S. I wonder who else it will bring me closer to; whether I will hit a nerve with someone I don't know very well, or at all. Right now, I'm feeling fortunate to live in a time when this technology exists and provides a simple and efficient medium for sharing ideas and receiving feedback.

In case you were wondering, the brisket turned out really well.