Writing is a funny thing. Throughout my schooling writing was mainly for essays and papers. I composed assignments about topics that rarely communicated my thoughts and feelings. In high school, I took up journaling. This was where I put on paper my true worries, joys and pre-occupations as I shared them with God. Writing had two spheres: public and private.
Then came this blog. We started it to keep our friends and family updated because we were moving cross-country. I say “we” but really this was not my idea and certainly I did not intend to maintain this website-thing. I slowly got involved and now I’m the most frequent “post-er.” Blogging does not fall neatly into either of my previous writing categories. This is published on the internet so that it’s available to all but it also communicates (somewhat) private information.
It’s a weird situation for me. I used to never allow anyone to read anything I write, not even to proofread it. If you read something I wrote, you were probably my grader. To hear my writing “voice” you’d have to send me an email. Now I voluntarily write for others to read. I must be growing up.
21/06/2008 at 11:20 pm Permalink
I can attest to the above post as the husband. I was totally shocked by K’s writing voice in college. It was very different from any interaction I’d ever had with her. Sometimes I forget that my wife is generally a very private person. As we were deepening our friendship, I didn’t realize she usually doesn’t let people that far into her life.
But here she has posted her thoughts on the web. I suppose God and experience have taught us the value of trying to balance openness and privacy. Such is life when you move across the country and have to start over with friends. Or how working in a church pretty much determines most of my relationships. Or when one maintains a blog.
Funny that I should actually be commenting on a post by my wife on this topic. She’s actually asleep and won’t read this until after some of you have!