Private

Today was an impromptu wonderland of best friend time. Jill and I have not seen one another since before Halloween, and it is not an exaggeration to say that I was starving for some quality time with her. For me, Jill is the person who keeps me on track. We have been friends for sixteen years, and she knows all my ugly things. She asked me, mostly for her husband who is fellow blogger, why I hadn't been writing? She knows me well enough to know that here is where I often process my thoughts and share my struggles. The truth is that I have been blogging for the past year, but I haven't published any posts. My struggles have been personal, and I felt that God was telling me to step back and return to a private conversation between the two of us.

As a former performer, I can tell you that attention of any kind of attention is addictive. Blogging is an addiction of sorts. When you do it on a regular basis, you find yourself saving conversations or ideas because they would make good blogs. It is easy to get caught up in the numbers of who is reading and what they are reading. This began to happen to me. I lost the focus of my blog, to openly discuss my struggle with faith, hope and letting go of the future through my infertility issues, and begin to seek out things that would be entertaining or exciting. At the same time, I begin to edit myself.

When you publicly publish your thoughts and feelings, then they are open to everyone to interpret. Some people will believe that it is veiled discussion of them, or they will respond with hateful and mean statements. People I didn't know sent me comments that interpreted my words in horrifying ways. As an English teacher, I know that all published works are separate from the author's intent the moment they are published. What another person takes from your writing is a reflection of their experience with it. This is no different than art, or theater, or music, but my subject is so personal that I didn't want to separate myself from it and allow the "people" to analyze my experience.

For these reasons, I have spent the last year blogging to myself. I have also been re-reading my infertility journal, and realizing what major work God has done with me in the past few years.  I would like to celebrate that work publicly, and discuss my new struggles with hope, faith and future. I think it will still be limited, but maybe I am ready to open up again.