safe spaces

As with many other things, I have an on-again, off-again, love-hate relationship with blogging. On the one hand, I believe it opens communication across geographic boundaries and invites conversation on many pressing topics that might otherwise go undiscussed. Recently, for instance, I came across an article by a woman who shared a similar experience growing up as I had. Just by virtue of reading it, I felt an amazing, unprecedented catharsis knowing that I was not "the only one." I doubt this would have ever happened without the written, electronic word. Even on this blog there is comfort in knowing that the challenges of being twenty-something, Christian, and female today span more than individual lives, as does the encouragement we share as we come to terms with it or find that special someone.

At the same time, as we are all aware, publishing these experiences -- however anonymously or obliquely -- comes at the expense of our privacy. For this reason, I never use my legal name in my blogs (nor anyone else's), nor links between them, or post my direct contact information (if I can help it). Yet, in one way or another, many of the people -- exes, my father (egad!), et al included -- I come to write about have come across information that I never intended them to. It is a sobering thought, and one I must confess that makes me bothered as though a real privacy violation had occurred. After all, it is one thing to read someone's blog for fun, out of common interest, or so on. It is quite another to *search* for someone's information for the explicit purpose of finding out personal information about them that they chose not to reveal to you in person.

So once again, I am at odds regarding the consequences of blogging. It is psychologically relieving to write and read about daily life, dreams, and doubts in a community outside of one's immediate environment. Yet, as I am realizing all too often, it could often come back to haunt you.

For instance, I have not qualms about saying that I am moving on, am genuinely happy, thank you very much, with a neighbor (no, not boyfriend) that I have gone out with a couple of times, and have nothing to regret other than when this tertiary communicator, the blog, is used as a stand-in or short-cut to get to know the folks right in front of us. For my own sake, this time I'll keep shut about the rest ... at least for now.

What do you think? As this and/or your personal blog grows in popularity, and our relational issues deepen, how much thought are you putting into who or what you write about, based on whom you think is or not reading it. Where do you draw the line, and is there such a think as a violation of privacy in a presumably public space? How safe is the Internet, after all, to talk about the things that matter most?

Just a thought! I hope this doesn't keep the rest of you from sharing the rest of your unfolding stories. I've enjoyed reading and pondering them all..... l.d.