To Tell or Not to Tell

New to this blogger world, I have a lot of questions. The first is the most basic, a content-oriented question - how much to reveal? The second is indirectly but inextricably linked to the first - whom to tell? I mean, as much as this is an exercise to feel out my own experiences, I would have just bought another cloth-bound journal and begun writing in that if I really didn't want anybody else reading this. And, since I suspect that many important people in my life will in some way appear in here as unwitting characters, do I even want them to know? Will their knowing preclude me from writing entirely honestly?

My ex-boyfriend used to tell me that I "sugarcoat" things. He meant this in a condescending - not in a nice - way: LM, you're sugarcoating again, just come on and say what you really mean. But I've never seen things as simply black and white, and sugarcoating could just be my way of expressing a lack of absolute judgment and instead my perceived nuances of persons, of situations - myself, himself, and aspects of our defunct relationship included. Either that, or I was afraid he wouldn't love me anymore if I expressed my real opinions, a gut feeling that ended up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy or a strange coincidence on the night he found - as he was filtering through my things while I was in the shower - an old, cloth-bound journal of mine in which one entry had been written when I was drunk and angry at him. There was no sugarcoating in those pages, and while what I had written was long-forgotten to me, it was unforgivable to him.

I don't want to sugarcoat here. I want to write for me. And perhaps retaining anonymity is a strong step towards ensuring I can do that.

Thus far I have only told three people about this blog, trusted people, people I can't imagine having a negative thought about - ever. But I've trusted people before who have betrayed me (the above-mentioned ex heading the list), and I know I'm not perfect either in that realm. Because sometimes, what is unequivocally private to one person falls under the "no big deal" category to another, and in that way, secrets become non-secrets as gates that were once locked begin opening, slowly and creakily at first, until before you know it the doors are swung wide open and an avalanche of consequences ensues. And for me, the worst of these consequences would be hurting someone I love.