I’ve been blogging for 16-ish years. I know. It’s crazy. And awesome. And kind of weird, if I think too hard about it…so I just won’t do that.
Years ago, I shared a lot about my life, from the important to the mundane. There were several times when, in retrospect, I probably overshared. Time has passed, and things have changed, and I feel like what I write here is now much more superficial. This is neither good or bad. It just…is.
I think a big part of the shift from “I talk about everything” to “I keep some things private” began when I got married. Jose is not as much of a sharer as me, not at ALL, and as much as I’d like to deny it, his opinion does have an impact on what I choose to write here — or rather, what I decide to NOT write about.
Now that I’m a wife and mom, my ruminations belong to me…and yet they don’t. At least not always. Or at least not if I’m making them public, because they often involve Jose, and Emma. Life decisions ultimately have to be made with his concurrence, or with her in mind. They affect me; I affect them. My thoughts — and my comfort level with sharing those thoughts — are different now.
Sometimes it bothers me. Sometimes I just want to be able to do what I want, to write what I want, to think out loud, without considering anyone else. Even after 5+ years of marriage and almost 2 years as a parent, I think in some ways I’m still adjusting to this different way of thinking, and of writing it down. Or NOT writing it down.
Sometimes I miss the outlet that I used to have here. I miss being able to complain about stupid things, to rant about a bad day, to work though my mini personal or mental crises when they pop up from time to time. Life outside the blog has changed as well, and I don’t see friends as often as I used to, and sometimes I feel like I’ve lost my social outlet on top of my blog outlet. I find myself with these big! life! angst! uncertainty! worry! feelings! thoughts! and few people with whom to bounce them around.
I’ve had a lot of thoughts rolling around inside my head lately. Thinking about whether we should move. Thinking about what I really want out of my career, and whether I should change it or stay the course in engineering. Thinking about my marriage and my relationship with Jose. Thinking about the future of our family. Thinking about personal traits that are no longer working for me, and thinking about whether it’s possible to change them. Thinking about why sad things that happen, and how to get past them. Thinking about the push-and-pull associated with getting through our daily lives vs. trying to keep the bigger picture in mind.
I don’t really have a point to make at the end of this ramble, at least not right now. I just wanted to share a few thoughts, or maybe I just wanted to share that there are a lot of thoughts going on behind the scenes right now that I’m not entirely sure how to write about just yet, but I want to, and hopefully will soon.
I sense we need more what-used-to-be-Mely’s nights in our lives. It was actually funny, I went out with a bunch of my law school classmates who are all in their late 20’s and had a Mely’s style night, and I was like “I remember what this used to be like, it was fun”. Groundups can do it too 🙂
A few weeks ago I read through your Columbia-era blogs, which I didn’t have time to read back then. Some of them (particularly frustration about me) made me laugh, some of them reminded me of things I had forgotten. I’m glad you still have them up.
As for sharing, I suppose it matters whether you want to discuss openly and capture these things now for posterity, or just discuss them on the side. I’m more of a on-the-side guy, myself.
I understand the shift from sharing lots of thoughts to being more guarded when you have other people in your life. I pretty much stopped blogging after Joel and I got married, in part because I know he was (is) less comfortable with sharing things on the internet than I am.
I know you wrote at one point about not sticking with paper journals, but I have found when I’m dealing with tough issues or big questions it can help me to just write down my thoughts – angry/mad/sad/confused/whatever they are. I don’t regularly journal but I find it can help even if I just write on one day or a few days in a row when I don’t feel like I have a good outlet for my thoughts or I don’t feel like there’s anyone I can discuss things with.