It’s no secret that I’ve been online for a long time.
Like a REALLY long time.
Since before AOL was invented. Before many other services that have come and gone.
As a matter of fact, I was a beta tester for AOL. (I thought it was too clunky BTW) I’ve been around THAT long.
And I’ve been reading what we now call blogs since then.
Even after all these years, I can still recall the personal stories that were shared in many of the online communities. Stories of adoption, children’s health and wellness, divorce, marriage and all of the other highs and lows of life.
Reading blogs shows me that I am not so alone after all.
That there are other people like me.
People that I am interested in.
People that I think about often.
In a way, even though I have never met most of you, I feel as if YOU are my friends.
In my real life, I tend to be quite introverted.I truthfully lead a pretty solitary life. I miss the camaraderie of living in neighborhood where everyone was close. I now live on a street where everyone is older and uh, they really aren’t my biggest fans. Too many kids and too much noise I guess.
I know that I don’t post about MY life very often. I tend to be hesitant to share the harder things in my life. I was raised to keep it ALL in. The good AND the bad.
I tend to feel that no one wants to know MY issues.
But yet, these are the emotional posts that bring me to certain blogs religiously. I feel so connected to bloggers that are going through some of the same things that I am.
I guess I need to learn to share more.
I’ve also noticed that I don’t really return often to blogs that are just review after review after review. There really isn’t the personal connection on those sites.
Don’t get me wrong. I like reading reviews on your blog, especially when they are relative to my life. But if I don’t relate to you, I won’t relate to your review.
So let’s make a deal, you and I. As a part of my 30 day challenge, let’s truly share who we are whenever possible. I’ll try harder to let you into my crazy life. As long as you try to be nice to me when I do.
And if you can’t be nice, try hard not to be mean, okay?
Oh man, I feel you on this! It’s been a struggle for me to find a good balance. I go through spurts of sharing posts about me and my life, and then I get back to the reviews that have deadlines looming… I need to look into one of those blog challenges that gives a daily topic to write on. Something easy, yet personal and gives readers a look into who I am and what I am up to.
Thanks for the reminder! 🙂
I’ve been struggling with this a lot lately. I used to be VERY “Mommy blog”. I solely blogged for the purpose of journaling daily things about my kids and our day to day life. I made so many honest connections with other moms with similarly aged kids. I had a community… people I still feel connected to (and I started blogging in 2007). Now I find myself trying to do the reviews, AND as my girls get older I feel less and less comfortable sharing a lot about them. It’s a hard line to walk.
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