To Blog or Not to Blog

To Blog or Not to Blog?September 26, 2009 by Rita Messina
I have thought about this blog more often than I probably should have this week. How do you keep it interesting, how do you keep it fresh, is anybody ever going to read this? Am I just scratching the surface and when will I get dark and twisty? Do I want to get dark and twisty or keep it light and entertaining? Will it stay mostly about my dancing and zydeco and the relationships and memories I have in my life? I knew I shouldn’t have gotten rid of my Magic 8 ball!

How am I ever going to make these kind of decisions? Then I did what I usually do, I let it go. I bore myself sometimes (most of the time ) with my obsessions which is a good thing because then they don’t stick around for long and bore other people. This blog will go where it goes. If I'm sad, get out the tissues. If I'm happy, honor it with a smile.

One thing everybody needs to know is this blog will probably never get intellectual or political or religious. And probably not sexual and I may never reveal my deepest, darkest secrets. If I ever go for that kind of blog I would probably do it under a pseudonym. I’ll just go on Face Book and get one of those stripper names after I answer 42 of the strangest questions that have absolutely nothing to do with stripping.

I do, periodically, have what my friend Sean calls, vulnerability hangovers. Not often, but once in a while. I would hate to be dancing with somebody and look over and see them smirking because then my mind would start going all over the place wondering if they had read my blog on what I did and who I did it with (or didn’t) and where we did it. And I would hate to think that I would be up for this great killer job with the CIA (maybe not the best way to put that, but I’m leaving it in) and the CIA checks out my blogging and rejects me. I mean, people, what we put on the internet stays on the internet. And my kids read this, and yes, my grandchildren will be able to read this. I want my grandchildren to think I was a great broad, a wonderful woman, the best Grandma in the world! I know, I’m getting ahead of myself since I don’t actually have
grandchildren, but someday I might. And I want to be mindful that I do not hurt anybody because that would never be my intent either. And I know I have to be careful with that because I can be sarcastic (you think?). I guess I just wanted someplace to put down the random thoughts that go through my head in a given day. One could say I am writing my stream of consciousness. Now that just sounds too intellectual, so I’ll get off that track quickly!

I am absolutely fascinated by blogs. I’ve followed some blogs and after a while you start thinking, I know this person, I could have a glass of wine with this person. Then I realize that sounds a bit stalkerish. I’ve made comments on blogs. I don’t think that is stalkerish. I think that just says “Hey, thank you for creating something and sending it out to the Universe. I read your blog and what you wrote matters and here is what I think." It is a bit of a conversation with somebody you don’t know, but it’s acknowledgement and we all want to be acknowledged in some way.

I read single women blogs, I read single men blogs (what are they really thinking?) I read travel blogs, dating blogs, divorce blogs, marriage blogs. And I guess I like reading that other people have the same fears and tribulations that I have, that most of us have. I believe that this kind of sharing connects one closer to the universe.

I can’t control what is happening in this world and I can’t always control what is happening in my own. I try (just ask my friends how controlling I can be) but it’s just not possible. But I can control what I write here, what I share of myself with the world (and with the CIA).