On Blog-anymity

My blog has always functioned behind a very thin veil of anonymity. If you wanted to, you could most definitely figure out who I am from my blog. And I've always been incredibly aware of that. I have never put anything on my blog that I wouldn't want people to see. Granted, there are a few posts that I probably would not be thrilled if a few specific people saw. But in general, I've been incredibly careful about what I put here.

But the anonymity allows me to post with a little more freedom than I could otherwise. A little less restraint. It's a lot easier to be intellectually honest if you don't know who is reading your deepest thoughts, convictions, and feelings. It's a lot easier, then, to write things that you might not say, to try to figure out who you are and what you believe.

I'm not sure how much my blog has allowed me to do those things--I think to varying degrees at different times--but I do know that that's what I'd like my blog to be about. True, sometimes I post snarky comments, links to articles I find somehow relevant, various forms of Columbia obsession. And all those things are very mucha part of who I am. But all in all, this blog has been a place where I could write what I felt. Where I could figure out what that was.

Not without restraint, but with less restraint than I would have if I knew who was reading. And that is liberating.

A few different instances lately (more than one incident from more than one person, so don't get a guilty look on your face) have led me to believe that people who at least nominally know me--or know who I am--are reading this. People who have drawn the connection between my blog to me to my family (which is slightly more surprising). And, I won't lie, it freaks me out a lil.

I have a friend who stopped blogging when this happened to her. And I could stop. Or I could start a new blog somewhere else and hold out until I was found again. But I don't want to do either of those things.

I've put a lot of time and effort into this blog--from the time this computer-illiterate person spent trying to use HTML to change the colors to the thought I've spent on some of these posts at ridiculous times of morning and night. I love this blog.

So, I'm going to keep on blogging just as I have because, well, because I enjoy it and because it gives me an outlet I haven't found in other things (even in journal-writing). I'm not going to post my name on my blog because I'd still like to pretend that it's at least a little anonymous (and I don't want it google-able). But I've made a conscious decision not to care who's reading this.

Because I'm doing this for me.