A Shared Secret

My favourite quote from Margaret Atwood's oeuvre is:

When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.

Margaret Atwood Alias Grace

I can think of about half a dozen critics off the top of my head, and without having touched a scholarly journal in half a year, that would make the comment, or a similar comment, that the protagonist, Grace, tells her story differently to each audience she is offered, so as to reflect the identity they wish her to embody.

I am starting to feel that this world of blogging is much the same. At least for me, I struggle daily with creating posts which take the confusion of my life and reflect back to you what you believe my life to be. It's not always so much of a conscious process, nor does it predominate even my subconscious process, but it certainly plays a role.

I became more aware of what I will call "the blogging facade" when I started being invited to read more private blogs. What I previously viewed with sinister eyes (many a private blog has linked to me in the past, leaving me unable to see what has been said, resulting in nothing more than suspicion of mockery and paranoia), I have now found to be a welcoming, and above all, genuine space -- a sanctuary amidst a technological world which thrives on insignificant details of minutiae (Instagram meal pictures, I'm looking at you....).

As I became more and more aware of this facade, I did see the practical nature of it all. First of all, there is the issue of safety. Details of where exactly we work, when we will be away from home, etc., are not a good idea to share. There are creeps out there. Second of all, we do respect other people's privacy. Whether it's the names of our husbands, our siblings faces, or details about our friends, we try to keep the focus on us, and keep them out of the direct spotlight.

I often wonder how much this third factor comes into play: how much to we keep private to maintain our blog facade? So often we get comfy in our niche and don't move, or only show the best and the brightest. Or, we share our wins and our losses, but not our everyday.

I'm not advocating absolute honesty, oversharing or blog re-direction, but simply asking you, the next time you write a post, think about the parts you aren't adding to your story. What do those details say about you?