A self-conscious blogger.

"I hope you don't compare real life to an edited one."

I read that today and it kind of struck a chord with me. The post talked about how these blogs of ours are just little snippets of our lives and that bloggers are real-life, normal people, complete with their fare share of ups and downs. As the owner of our blog, we get to decide what we want to share with the world and what we want to keep private. We can choose to portray our lives as rainbowy or not-so-rainbowy as we'd like.

Sometimes I struggle with what to share or not. Sometimes I let my guard down and just lay it all out there and sometimes I feel self conscious and clammer up and ignore the blog for days. Sometimes I'm bursting at the seams to share my life with the world and sometimes I don't think my life is all that significant to write about.

Putting your life out there and sharing publicly, via a blog, opens the gates for others to see you, judge you, like you, hate you, and that's just something that comes with the territory I suppose, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want people to like me. I mean, don't we all? But sometimes I think I let this blog consume me too much. I think about the thoughts of who might be reading this more than I should.

For example, I wanted to share that I sent out my first resume yesterday to this little boutique because ever since I was 16 I've always dreamed of having my own one day and I decided I needed to start somewhere if I was ever going to learn and make it happen and so I'm jumping in. But I didn't know how to talk about it without feeling a little embarrassed about going after yet another career when two others failed so recently.

I was going to mention that we finally got our tree today because we finally got some extra money to make it happen without dipping into our savings or using a credit card but I hesitated because talking about money can seem so tacky to some.

I wanted to talk about the side job I've been doing for the last few weeks but because it wasn't anything amazing or long term, I didn't know where to begin. Plus, with the comments I've read about people's assumptions on our financial situation, I didn't want to seem defensive.

I love this blog and I love that I have a place to vent and document and remember. I love the community I've connected with. But what I want to remember is that when I'm old and grey and blogging is an old and foreign concept, I'LL be the one that remembers this space and I'LL be the one, and only one, who cares (Okay, maybe my future children will care too.). So what I write today, though I love making people laugh and perhaps maybe inspire every now and then, is and should ultimately be for me and my little brain that is the worst at remembering and I'm sure will only continue to get worse the older I get.

I hope I can work up the courage to write with more confidence and less self-doubt. And I also hope to always remember that all of us, when choosing to share whatever details we choose, are more alike than we realize whether it's written or not. It's easy to compare your own life to someone else's you're reading about and feel that perhaps your life is lacking or perhaps maybe theirs is, but it's a good reminder to know that they're human, just like you.

Happy Friday, friends. As always, thanks for listening. :)

xoxo