Say What You Want To Say

Sometimes I feel like I have a ball gag in my mouth.

Bet that piqued your interest, eh? As much as my life has some excitement from time to time, I'm inclined to keep it to myself these days.

And that's my point.

I don't know if it's age, disinterest or a growing sense of modesty and reputation management, but I've become far more private in recent years. It's a far cry from when I was blogging in 2004 and writing about everything from my criminal record to racy dating exploits.

My 27-year-old self was brash, committed to over-sharing, and eager to find depth or a clever nuance in just about anything.

Cheeky as ever, these days I play things close to the vest. I suppose it's in part because I realize most people don't give a damn about my poor housekeeping habits or my deep thoughts about a woman in her -insert age here-.

While those topics make me easily relatable and more humanistic, they're pretty pedestrian and anyone could jot down a few missives about them.

So why should I?

My lack of posting also probably comes with the, ahem, more mature perspective that sometimes people don't need to know everything. I learned several years ago that writing about work is strictly verboten if you don't want to upset the applecart. And my sex life/finances/emotional status are good points to refrain from sharing, too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel a little lost as a blogger.

Back in the old days when I was a news producer, I had several news directors who'd refer to feeding the beast. Whether you're a journalist for television, print or online, there's an unwritten, unsaid pressure that drives you to crank out more content. "Let's get a sidebar for the lead story! Who can flesh out a couple more angles?" I'd say to my coworkers, wanting to beat a dead horse keep telling the story.

Blogging shares a little bit of that pressure.

You know what I'm talking about - the blogger who posts content every day just because. Not because it's funny/insightful/deep/informative, but because it's a new post for a new day.

That's feeding the beast. That's blogging just because.

And I don't want to blog just because. I want to tell stories and share opinions that make me feel something, because if they make me feel something, then hopefully they'll make you feel something.

That's why we do this, right? At least, that's why I do this.

Each of my days are full of thoughts and feelings and experiences. Some of them are exciting and deeply personal, and others are completely inane and likely don't deserve the bandwidth. It's all that in-between stuff that I'm trying to nail down and decide if I should share it.

I'm at a loss for words regarding what I want to say, and sometimes I don't feel like saying a single thing.


Kate's Random Musings by Kate the Great is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.