Pouring my heart into your hands

I'm struggling to know where to begin. I need to open my heart, speak freely as I have always set out to do here. Yet what I have realised, in the last week or so, is that I have never spoken freely, because I was always conscious of what I was holding back...

While mulling over these thoughts, I came across some excellent posts in the last week, touching on the same themes. The first, and truly the catalyst for me, was lovely, wise, sad Smiler of From Smiler, With Love. Her post, "After the fifth break-up it gets easier" touched on the impact her blogging had on her relationship break-down, and how the honesty she brought to her blog became a double-edged sword in someone else's hands.

Her post opened a window in my soul, and shone a very bright light in, a searing light. I commented:

"I am pondering my own situation at the moment and you have given me food for thought.

I keep a blog, love it and the extended community I am becoming a part of with a passion, and treasure the opportunity to explore my thoughts and re-kindle my love affair with the page.

I don't talk about it with my husband at all. We have a troubled marriage, and a beautiful small son...it is a very difficult time, and I have NOT been talking about it, even when I have been incredibly miserable. And wondering if I should. Or could. I want to talk about how I'm feeling, but know how he would react should he find out. Yet I feel that I'm not being fully honest and myself, which is one of the things I seek most to do on my blog..."

And suddenly - there it was. My truth, out on the page for others to read. And my conundrum - because while I haven't been talking about my unhappiness here for you to share (and there will be some who will read this and think that is the right thing to do - that there are lines that should be drawn, especially between a husband and wife), I also haven't been telling him about you, this blog, and this strange place we inhabit where I can consider some of you friends even though we've never met, and I perhaps don't even know what you look like.

I feel like I've been dishonest and disloyal to everyone. Okay, that may seem a bit extreme, and maybe it is. There are very real issues here of discretion and loyalty and privacy, and I understand all that. Two more posts I read explored these ideas even further.

First, Motherscribe (one of my treasured new friends from NaBloPoMo) wrote "Blog posts are little snapshots into our lives". She examined the feelings triggered by another (wise and wonderful) blogger Mrs G. in her post "Boundaries, Anyone?", who concluded with the question: "What are your feelings, reader, about the boundaries of blogging? Is your blog open to the public or your immediate family? Do you occasionally tip-toe or do you feel it's your life, your blog, your story to tell in whatever manner you choose...warts and all?"

And there I've hung myself. I've done neither. My blog is basically known only to those who have discovered it for themselves. One or two friends are aware that I have a blog, but are not (yet?!) caught up in the phenomenon themselves and therefore don't appear to have looked for it or read it. My best friend and my mother both know I blog, but I haven't volunteered the link and they haven't probed. My husband would both love to know about it, so he could search it for reference to my innermost thoughts and how I portray him (and us) to the world, and hate it as an incredible invasion of privacy plus flagrant exhibitionism - almost as if I stripped naked and draped myself on the front fence. And in some ways he would be right...(and yet, funnily enough, I haven't been guilty of either - until now.)

I don't know what will happen in my marriage. I feel as if we're coming close to a turning point, but I'm really unsure which way that will take us. What I do know is that there are certain things I need to do for myself right now, for my sanity and my well-being.

This blog is high on the list. It's by me - it's mine alone. It's about me - I choose what I reveal and who I am when I am here...or at least I thought I did. It's for me - it's writing practice, and social network, and emotional and mental outlet. A safe place to lay my thoughts out on the page. Hearts and hands to catch me when I fall (isn't that right, Smiler?).

I had to tell you this. I don't intend to turn this blog into a griping misery, but I do feel I will be letting more of my personal feelings in, and perhaps that snapshot into my life might be a little frank. I also think I'll be letting a few more of my loved ones in on the action. I think, to be wholly and truly myself, I have to stop keeping parts of my world separate, and let them meld and mix as they will.

But I still have to draw a very big line. I do not choose to talk about this with my husband. I have had enough of self-censorship. He is not entirely comfortable with who I am in the real world - he is not ready for the me he would find here.

You are.