feeling duplicitous

Image on Pinterest via weird fish (original source unknown)

I’ve only told a few people about this here blawg – not even my family know. I don’t know why I haven’t shared it with them. The fear of judgement or some shit, I suppose. I don’t like sharing what I’ve written with people, especially when I’m face to face with them, but more than that, I don’t like sharing what I’m feeling or people even knowing how I really feel. I guess that’s why I write: it’s a way of getting my emotions out without having to have a conversation with someone. Feelings and shit, ew.

When I started box of crayons, I had planned to tell everyone. Let everyone read. It was a way to get over the sheer terror of people reading what I’d written. So I emailed a few friends, told a few girls at uni … and that was it. Whenever an opportunity presented itself for me to tell my family, the words would be on the tip of my tongue but never went any further. I couldn’t do it. I always figured that if this writing caper ever amounted to anything – as in published work – then I wouldn’t have any problem with letting people read my work because shit would be legit, yo. But just tooling around with blog posts and pretty pictures and talking about my cat didn’t seem all that much to be shooting my mouth off about.

Work friends are slowly, one by one, joining Twitter. I dread them coming across me. I feel like I wouldn’t be able to be myself anymore. Then they might stumble across the blog and I’d die of mortification. I would hate to think that it was casually mentioned at the office. Then I think why would they even give a toss that I keep a blog? They wouldn’t. No-one does. It’s not a big deal – to them. To me, it feels like they would be reading my journal. (Sometimes I take my journal into work on a Saturday. I have panic attacks about forgetting to take it home with and finding out later that someone came across it, photocopied all the pages and put a copy on everyone’s desks. Then they would all gather in the kitchen and laugh about it.)

So I created a cover Twitter account. A diversion of an account. I debate about following the people from work, sort of like heading them off at the pass, but then it doesn’t sit right. I feel deceitful. So I sit, paralysed, unable to make a decision about what to do. I could stick with the fake/real Twitter account and feel comfortable that the work people (who I really like, I do really) won’t come across the blog and I can stay safe in my duplicitous little world, or I could grow a vagina and just not give a damn if people do find out. (I’m not going to go as far as telling people. That ship has sailed, my friend.)

I don’t know. I hate holding back but I don’t think that everything needs to be shared with everyone. What do you guys do? Do people (friends, family, work peeps, the coffee guy) know you blog? How do you feel about them finding out? Tell me because I feel like I’m going to have a conniption at any minute.