Thicker Skin

Here is what I find interesting, I come here every day and I post something and I get one or two comments. Most of you reading never say a thing. Which is cool, I read several blogs I don't comment on.

However, when one person gets nasty in the comments suddenly there are 5 or 6 people who jump in to say how awful I am. Seriously.... why do you read here if you hate me and what I write? No one forces you to come. If I read a blog and I continue to disagree with the author I don't read any more.

And if I do regularly enjoy the blog but just happen to find one thing that I don't like one day I don't get on and leave them an awful comment and tell them how "pathetic" they are. I just assume that maybe I read it wrong or maybe I just don't agree with them on something. I don't feel the need to attack them on a public forum. So, oh great hateful ones, do you feel better about yourselves because you said bad things about me?

Look, I realize that these things shouldn't bother me. I realize that writing here opens me up to people who do not understand who I am. People who only know me as a person inside the computer and not a real person. Well, rest assured, I am a real person and this blog is a part of me. Something that I don't just leave here. It is something that I think about and write in my head all day long.

I suppose if I have learned anything from Dooce it should be that everyone who has any sort of a following is going to have blog trolls. People whose sole purpose is to try to drag down the blogger. And in the end, perhaps I should just do what I wanted to do in the first place, delete the comments and move on. After all, that's what she does. Get thicker skin, don't let them bother me, move on.

But that's not me. I don't have 50,000 readers, I am lucky if on any given day I have 50. And I have this horrible desire to have each and every one of you like me. Which, at the end of the day, is a very unrealistic goal. So rather than just delete hateful people I try to figure out what I did, what I said, what I can do to make it better but what I have finally realized is that the answer to that is nothing.

When you come here and you read what I write you form your own opinion of me. Good, bad or otherwise. But the fact of the matter is that when I close the lid to my laptop I take this blog with me in my head but you all do not go with me in real life. I could stop writing tomorrow and my life would not end and you all would just find something else to do with the 2 minutes a day you spend here.

That is the reality I have to face. That is the part of the equation that I need to come to grips with. However, be that as it may one anonymous person did make one very valid point and that is that I am hiding. I took that comment down because it hurt me and I'm not in the mood right now to feel hurt. I reserve that right. But the point at the end about me hiding, that point was a valid and one I want to address here.

While it sucks, you're in the position of a double edged sword. One side cuts because you think have to hide yourself here so that nothing is used against you, the other side cuts because that means you're lying to everyone here... The friends and family you don't let see the other side.

I started the other blog because there were things that I thought would hurt my family and Jake's family to be posted here. I needed a place to process all that was going on and come to terms with my life as it was. I restricted who I gave access to in an effort to make that place safe for me but apparently one person (who does not like me very much or think very much of my writing) slipped through the cracks.

To that person, I'm sorry that you feel that way. Please loose the address to both of my blogs... problem solved.

For the rest of you, there are a lot of things that have happened in my life in the last four years that I have been posting here that I have not blogged about here. By their very nature they were ugly and angry and hurtful.

From today until Wednesday this blog will be a happy place. Butterflies and ponies damn it!! :-)~
On Thursday I will tell you all the truth. Just as with this blog, you can choose whether you read that post or not but it will be up here. I'm sure it will garner it's fair share of hate mail as well and I'm prepared for that.

The post that I am writing will not be everything that is on the other blog. That one will remain as my safe space and my place to process. It will, instead be one, LONG post about a lot of things that may, or may not give you a little bit of insight into who I am.

But for now, would it kill you all to just do a little happy dance for me? A horrible part of my life is ending. A relationship that made both people in it miserable is finishing and we will both be able to live separate, hopefully happy lives.

So yes, I do feel a party is in order for that and I wouldn't begrudge him the happiness of having one of his own, believe me when I tell you I wasn't always a peach to live with myself. :-)