I read an article in Ladies Home Journal (it was cheap, OK?) about how women need female friends. One of the roles of our female friends is to help us work out problems with our spouses.
This got me thinking: I have (I think) an excellent marriage. We are nearing the seven-year mark, and I’m still very much in love. He tells me he is, too. We do have things that crop up, but we’ve always been able to work them out, mostly because we communicate really well. So, I can’t imagine dumping on a friend about the latest stupid thing my husband did, mostly because he doesn’t do stupid things, but also because we’ll work it out. We always do. Why air my marital challenges for others to see, even if they are close friends? Loyalty to those not present, and all that.
That got me thinking about areas of my life that are off-limits for public consumption. This is very much a “public consumption” blog. I have an audience, albeit a small one. There are areas of my life that I am simply not comfortable talking about in front of an audience, even an audience as erudite, charming, and perspicacious as mine:
- My criminal background
- My past drug use
- My teen years
- My first marriage
- My daughter’s teen years
- My sex life
- My goals
- My weight problem
- My 17 years as a believing Mormon
Some of these things - well, they’re in the past. I’m not the same person; I’ve moved on. Others are difficult to think about seriously, even years later. Others involve other people who might not appreciate me talking about it. Others are none of your business.
I like to think that I am an open person, but perhaps I am deluding myself. Perhaps I am guarding myself too closely, and that’s why I have so few real friends. Even the things listed above that most would agree are not anybody’s business, or that really aren’t suitable for public consumption, I don’t talk about with close friends. So how can we be really “close”?
The only real downside of this is that my blog might be more interesting if I wrote about some of these things. Maybe I can find one or two of them and write about them a bit. It’ll probably be the least interesting on the list. I would guess my weight problem and my goals.
“There are areas of my life that I am simply not comfortable talking about in front of an audience”
You should keep it that way, you don’t need to be more interesting and as far as I can tell nobody is running from you given what you do talk about (IMhO)
Did you ever read the book called “Secret Ceremonies, A Mormon Woman’s Intimate Diary of Marriage and Beyond” by Deborah Laake? When I read this book I was quite ambivalent by its contents. I read the book in one night because it fascinated me, it’s short and it was full of dysfunction. Plus I was deeply interested in the material because it was at the apex of my apostasy. But the salient point is, this woman got naked with her soul, I mean she bared it all. She could have posed for Hustler magazine and not have revealed more. There were some incredibly touching moments in the book but often I was embarrassed for her. I have no way of knowing but suspect that she paid a heavy price for being so radically open with her audience. The fact of the matter is that it was very interesting to read such intimate details of her life. Your post got me to thinking about Deborah and her courage (foolishness?) in sharing so much of her. Some people can be open and revealing like Deborah, others can’t and that’s ok IMO.
What an interesting perspective, Doug. I really hadn’t considered that self-revelation is like emotiporn. Difficult for both the writer and the reader, but (I would guess) very healing, and freeing. Sort of like skinny-dipping for the first time.
Maybe I need to start a private blog, wherein I write about all that stuff. And then, take interesting bits and try to make a plot of it and write a book. Fiction, of course.
By the way, the version of “It’s Gonna Rain” I was looking for is by The Violent Femmes. PiscusFische, late of the Foyer and maybe still there a bit, is seeing them in concert tonight with The Cure and Somebody Else, per her blog. I think it’s from before “Why Do Birds Sing?” Gordon Ganno is one strange artist.
I watched the video for American Music the other night, after searching in vain for “It’s Gonna Rain.” It’s on launch.yahoo.com. What a trip.
But now that it’s not raining, I really don’t have any need for the song. Though if you could snag me “I Hope You Dance,” I’d be tickled pink. I paid for the damn thing, but it doesn’t work. They are giving me back my 79 cents, but y’know, I don’t really want the 79 cents, I want the song. If I give you 79 cents, will that make it legit?
Randy, don’t read this…
Interesting, most of my very close friends are male…..always have been. Don’t know why. And, yes, girls hated me for it because they always read more into it than was necessary or true. I just feel more comfy divulging personal details to close male friends. (must go back to the messed up relationship I have with my mother)
I am quite an open person. I will leave out most details but I am very open. Always have been. It’s opened the door to communication in many of my friendships and acquaintances. Funny how if others know you are dealing with similar issues you can create good sources for support.
However, I think divulging too much to the wrong parties can be damaging and dangerous.
I have a personal blog and details go there. I usually delete, delete though because although it’s personal you never know who has access. It just feels good to get it out of my system.
I wish I liked writing as much as I liked typing or should I say wish I could write, crampfree as fast as I can type? lol
Oh, and Ann, don’t for a minute think your blogs are boring or uninteresting or can be improved by adding gory personal details. You have wonderful insight and we all learn from you and your example.
Oddly enough, I feel much more comfortable sharing my soul on my blog for public consumption. The truly painful bits I tend to spread among everyone’s comments so they are harder to track back to me. Course that means I have effectively turned everyone’s space into my own personal soap box, so feel free to delete, delete, delete.
Most people who know me in person have very little idea about who I am and where I’m from. They just don’t get it. I see it as proof that I’m weird and I must learn live with it and hide it as necessary. My kids like relatively normal in public and I do my best to accomodate them.
SOmetimes, I just want to feel normal and not like such a freak. That’s why I love this little blogging group. I read about you and you are all wonderfully complex and smart and ironic and share my goofy sense of humor. I can tell smart stories and ribald ones. And neither gets me ostracized.
One of my goals is to be more genuine in my face to face dealings. I don’t deal with rejection well, so its a struggle for me to open up more and not just close myself off from people. I have opened up a bit and I have a much fuller social life and a few good friends. But I still have work to do, I still suck in group situations.
Its your blog and you don’t have to do anything. There’s no social pressure and we aren’t likely to say you are stupid or anything retarded like that.
But, I would find your goals fascinating and hope that you will one day feel comfortable enough sharing them with us.
re: is it gonna rain…the viloent femmes is the group version i tried to get and darn it if I could not find it anywhere
I’m off to find the other song you mentioned….
and then this time I really really am going to go take a crack at cleaning my basement
oh my I am jealous that PF got to see the Cure
re: I Hope You Dance, is that also by violent femmes?
Miranda, you mean I’m not the only one in this blogging circle that feels like a weirdo?
I often tell people if they can accept that I am abnormally weird then they won’t be disappointed. Usually it’s mine own expectations that catergorize me as such.
I would love to spend a day with you and play dot to dot.
I found it by Lee Ann Womack, Faith Hill and Martina McBride, I guess I’ll just get em all and you can tell me which one eh, cool beans.
http://members.shaw.ca/monkey2shoes/
two flavors available, 1 by Lee Ann Womack, 2 by Faith Hill. I had to split em up, download them all and click on the *.exe and it will recombine it into a mp3 (right click on the files and choose “save target as”)
I like to hear people’s goals - unfortunately they don’t usually shoot high enough.
But thoughts of My Criminal Background or My Teen Years - hours of speculation there.
The world is probably full of very weird people. We all put on our little normal mommy faces and act all proper and focussed and set a good example. But inside, we feel like we’re different from everybody around us and if they knew who we really were, they wouldn’t like us. And here’s the kicker: every single human feels like this. We are all putting on this little show of what we think everybody else wants to see. When what we really want to see is inside each other’s souls. To understand, and to be understood.
I think one of the reasons I feel like I relate so well to Jo and Miranda and Brenda is because the pieces you share of your lives are so brimming with your true selves.
Ann. You’re a class act.
I’m having one of those days I wish I could delete everything I ever wrote on the internet.
I want to disappear.
Here’s something I don’t want to write on my own blog.
I had to go to church today to listen to my daughter’s talk. She is articulate, insightful and cohesive. Problem is it became enormously plain to me she has bought the whole brainwash when I had secretly thought she’d be like me. Stunning revelation.
When the Stake speaker got up to talk on tithing and temple attendance, I felt the chasm between me and dh open up so far I didn’t even think I could even parasail over it.
So I go home, curl up in a ball and cry. I am nobody without my family. dh will come out of his grumpy Sunday mood by mid-week. I will come out of my depression in a few days. But I’m faced with this cycle almost every week.
That’s why I say stupid things and bare my soul on the internet. To get me over wanting to just disappear.
Ann, I wouldn’t change a thing about your blog. It’s interesting enough as it is. I go back and forth about what to share and what not to.
Geeez, Brenda……you said out loud something I have been wrestling with….”I am nothing without my family”.
I have felt myself slowly spiraling into an identity crisis lately with all the emotional family drama that has been going on. I am hanging on by the fingernails. I have wrapped my whole self into my hubby and family…even my dogs.
So when there are gaps, they are magnified even more so and I become an emotional piece of worthless crap.
If hubby were gone tomorrow and kids all grown and gone down their own paths (which has happened with a couple of them) what do I have? It’s tough looking in the mirror and not knowing who the hell is looking back at you.
Is it unhealthy that I have chosen this identity? Why aren’t the rewards as I anticipated? How do I lessen the gaps? How do I learn to jump over them….enter the other side’s territory without crumbling mine? ugh Questions, questions.
I am not saying you are experiencing these same things…you just sparked the inevitable “jamble” that has been brewing. sigh
Brenda, looking at your comment from a different angle…..maybe your DD IS just like you????? We all bought into the whole brainwashing thing. Don’t lose hope….not yet. I feel the same way about my DD who did the whole temple thing last Nov. Ugh she reminds me of me at her age - hopefully it won’t take her till the age of 40 something to gain the same wisdom I now possess…well, I HOPE it’s wisdom. lol
Brenda, I’m sorry you had such a crummy day at church. My Sacrament Meeting was pretty lousy, too. Maybe next time one of your kids gives a talk, you can ask them to share it with you before they give it, outside the meeting. Then you don’t have to hear the high councilor talk about tithing. Ick!
Also, in the past, your daughter has been prone to saying what’s expected of her. Maybe that’s what she was doing here.
(((Brenda)))
Thanks guys. Yeah, I think my daughter will have her breakdown at 40 like I did. Until then, she’ll be happy, I believe.
DH admitted to me that he wished we had moved away from this ward years ago because it has the most anal-retentive, by-the-book Mormons he’s ever known in his life. It was so good just to hear him say that. I sort of quoted Ann, and said, “I wish it were JUST church, and then I could go without having a meltdown.” Ann, I think I’ll need to email you some more regarding your Zen of Live and Let Live.
B., I’m here if you need me.
Doug, I’m on pass 13 through “I Hope You Dance.” You so rock, my man.