My blogging sister BGM, also known as Black Girl in Maine posted a heartfelt blog today about the daily travails of marriage.
She discussed the hard work that is mandatory to maintain a committed, happy relationship with another human being, and she also discussed the many temptations we must overcome to remain in marriage. It was a deeply personal post, and she and her husband should be commended for being willing to discuss their personal lives so openly for the benefit of others.
Couldn't be me.
Some of y'all might be shaking your heads saying "But Big Man, you seem so honest and open on your blog. Surely you would be that way no matter what topic came up for discussion."
Y'all are wrong.
Let me be clear. I always strive for honesty. Writing sucks if it's not honest, and it's impossible to generate content that other people can feel if you don't have some sort of feelings on the topic yourself. My feelings might not be as strong as they come across in the blog, but that's because the blog allows me to explore the outermost reaches of my emotional landscape.
However, there are some things even I won't discuss.
It's not because they are not important topics, or because I don't have strong feelings on those topics. I think about my marriage every day, and I pray about it a lot too. People who are married know that this sort of intense attention is pretty standard. However, I just wouldn't feel comfortable sharing those thoughts and worries to a wider audience. Some things I just can't talk about.
But, that only increases my admiration for those folks who are willing to take on these difficult subjects and spill their guts about how things work in their own lives. It takes courage to lay your foibles and failures on display for the world to look at and pick over. Even the cloak of anonymity only offers limited protection. Although people may not know xactly who you are, as they discuss your life they have the ability to wound you in ways they could scarcely imagine.
So, for all of you sharing your lives on the internet or in person, I say, "God bless you." You are providing a service that the world needs, you are providing real world examples of the problems most of us face, and hopefully one day you'll provide solutions.
I'll be cheering from the sideline, even if I won't be writing.
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2 comments:
That's a tough one, no doubt. Even though I'm anonymous at my blog, I do tend to veer away from giving away too many details of my personal life out of concern that I might reveal something that a person I care about wouldn't want to see out there...or expose one of the few people who KNOW who I am personally to info they don't really want to know.
At times, I've worried that some of my sexual topics and such would bother Son of Blue since he reads my blog from time to time and the fact I talk about certain topics is a reminder to him that Mrs. Blue and I still get horizontal (or vertical as the case may be) in intimate ways. Funny, though, that his tolerance level is extremely high, despite being a teen, while my wife's is quite a bit lower (she vetoed one of my sex oriented posts and I took it down, yet Son of Blue was like, "Why? I read it and wasn't bothered."
Go figure.
Anyway, you get personal enough with your opinions and feelings on things; we'll forgive you not giving us a view into your home, no matter how intriguing it might be.
;-)
I almost never talk about my personal life on my blog. What I try to do is write an honest post that, hopefully, will get a conversation going. I try to get readers to talk about what's going on with them.
The decision to talk about one's personal problems in that it will help is worthwhile. But one has to be careful that those personal posts don't amount to more than digging one or couple into a personal quagmire. Why? Because, though what they are going through may be very understandable to some, others will not connect to it. But I do think it's courageous and wish them well. Blessings.
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