Sometimes I feel like I’m lying to you all. I mean, I don’t, but there’s lots you don’t know, and that I don’t say, because it’s the internet and I’ve been stalked before and it’s made me … cautious. So, it’s lies of omission.
Things like; the cat is dying. He has been dying for a long time. Which makes you (me) have a false sense of security, and feel like he isn’t actually dying because if he’s lasted this long, maybe he can go on forever. But I know that he can’t, as I hear his breathing get more and more laboured every day. You really shouldn’t hear a cat’s sinuses/lungs make those gurgling/popping noises. But, so long as he’s happy.
I have undergone radical lifestyle changes and shifts in the last 2 years which never made it to the blog because I’m not convinced any of you actually want to read that I’ve been eating well and going to the gym. There are other blogs you can read if that’s the story you’re after. But there’ve also been doctors and a couple of operations in there too, and they have had repercussions, which are taking me a while to recover from. They took a lot more out of me than I guess I expected them to.
Sometimes when Himself and I go out into the Big Wide World on an Adventure I think to myself, I can’t wait to get home and tell the blog all about this! And I take photos specifically for that purpose! Then I get home, and I go through my photos, and I think to myself “Why on earth would anyone care what you did today?!?”
Or as I’m sorting through photos of the things that I love, or that I found inspiring and moving, that I want to show you, they suddenly all seem quite meaningless. Either that or I can’t think of a sentence to string them together to help illustrate why that picture means so much to me. I guess perhaps I over analyse. It often just feels like illiteracy.
Sometimes despite all of this, I feel like I share too much of myself online too. Sometimes it’s a tightrope walk. A finely tuned four way balancing act where I hang ever tottering between “tell them everything”, “no identifying information”, “why do you think anyone cares”, and “be entertaining!”
I have different families, and I love all of them. I believe most of them read the blog. I know a couple don’t. Some of them are very far away and I wish I could be closer to hold them and help them through tough times. Bring them comfort. I guess that in some ways this blog is my way of reaching out to them. At least, letting them know that I/we’re still here.
Some of them are very nearby. And I am grateful to them every single day.
ghoti industries 
Your photos are great. You don’t HAVE to tie them together, although it is nice when you can. As someone who will never travel to the places you have, it is wonderful seeing someone else’s adventures.
I like to think that I do have the mental capacity to tie a post together, though sometimes I amaze myself! 😉 I’m glad you like reading about my adventures 🙂 *hugs *
This was a beautiful and brave post. I choose to call it brave because it’s not easy to say these things sometimes, to share these things. To put these things out there. It’s easy for a reader to forget that a blog only contains a fraction of what goes on in a blogger’s life; that there is so much that doesn’t ‘make the cut’ for one reason or another. That there might be so much more that you would share, but don’t, for any number of reasons (valid or concocted by an interior self-critic). It is wonderful to read about your adventures, to see what sights and experiences you choose as noteworthy. It’s a different way for me to see some places I have seen with my own eyes and a window into places I have not seen and may never see.
The share/do not share line is either very very fine or else it is a huge and blurry gradient; it’s hard to know to what extent content we share should be driven by the real or imagined audience or by us and our own will to communicate. Or maybe I am completely off base and it’s nothing like a line at all. Maybe there’s complete privacy on one side and complete openness on the other and we wander back and forth between the two, hoping to find some way to balance our public and private selves? (rereading that, geez, now who’s overanalyzing! that would be me!)
Either way, thank you for sharing what you choose to share, for taking us with you on your adventures and letting us see the world through your eyes. xx
Thank you for appreciating the effort it can sometimes take to open yourself up on the internet and share your life.
I like to think that I’m a little bit relaxing, a little bit entertaining, and a little bit thought provoking (even if those thoughts are sometimes an eye roll at my dodgy jokes!) The balancing act is just tough sometimes.
Thank you for reading, and for commenting. Comments and interaction make it all worth while.
Oh, I feel the exact same way about my blog. And I rarely use it anymore because of these thoughts and feelings. But at the same time, I miss blogging. So I’m stuck in this neverending loop of “I should blog” and “nobody cares”.
It’s good to write about these things though, it’s good for me to read I’m not alone with these feelings, and I can imagine it’s good for you to write all of this down. Clear your heart a litte =)
At the end of the day, it is your blog, and you get to decide what you want to do with it =)
I was wondering where you had gone, and worrying about you as I recovered form surgery; it made me wonder how your CFS/ME is going and how you’re managing each day. I care about you 🙂
And thank you for reading and caring about me too.
Oh that’s so sweet ❤
I'm not doing too good, I'm pretty much housebound now, and it's really no fun. Which is also one of the reasons why my blog is so empty, I never really have anything new to say.
But I do still read tho =) ❤