Peel Back

There are some things about having an online diary that are good, and some things that are not so good. And some things that are downright awful.

I keep trying to be elequent here, and it's not working, so I'll just go back to my normal status quo: blunt. I'm good at blunt. I have all the grace and beauty of a 9lb hammer anyway.

The best thing about an online journal/diary/blog is the ability to just sit down and spew things out when they occur to you. I find it to be immensely stress-relieving at times. And I've never had quite the same reaction from a paper-private don't-read-this sort of diary. Believe me, I've tried.

(I might further add that one of my attempts to keep a diary resulted in getting massive shit from my grandmother, who decided to read it and thought that I needed some major professional help. I did. Need it, that was. But I didn't get any. What I did get was a major guilt trip and some serious issues about being able to trust people, since one would think that a private diary should be private, but apparently privacy is for adults only.)

There's a bit of a compulsion about having some sort of audience to write for - even if it's just the few people I'm friends with who keep blogs of their own. It keeps me at this, and I'm sure every one else who blogs agrees - we write partially for our readers.

Part of the problem is, of course, that because what we have is out there on the interweb and available to everyone who can use a search engine...

Yeah.

I've been outed.

It's not the first time it's happened, either. About five years back or so (don't bother combing through the archives, this is before I started this aspect of my blog and I don't have the archives from the 2+ years of journalling I did before.) I made some rather snarky comments about a friend who was acting like a possessive asshole about another friend. It was a stupid situation to witness and I felt obligated to comment about it. Said friend was, of course, none too happy about my negative portrayal of his behavior. And when he brought it up to me, my response was "Well, don't act like an asshole if you don't want people to think you're one."

Of course, it's much easier to blow off a sometimes friend that you don't see very often than it is to blow off someone you care about.

Turns out that my step-mom reads my blog. (which I did Not Know). And you may recall, I said some pretty biting things about our Christmas trip up to see them, week before last.

There are also lots of things I didn't say about that particular trip or the events immediately surrounding it. But these things did contribute to my rather nasty post.

It's difficult to bitch and/or feel justified about bitching when there's something going on in the world that's so tragic you can hardly breathe when you think about it. I mean, who cares that I'm somewhat grouchy when there are 150,000+ people dead in Asia? Unfortunately, it doesn't change the fact that I'm grouchy. It just makes me feel guilty about being grouchy. But it doesn't make me less grouchy... my problems may be small and relatively insignificant. But they still bother me. I just have this load of guilt on top of it.

The people that upset me the most in my life are the people I love. When some woman calls me trailer trash in the convenience store because we're driving a shit-car and Kevin just cut her off for a prime parking space... it makes me angry. For a little while. And then I get over it. When the people I care about make me mad or upset, it festers. I get upset and I keep getting upset. I pick at it. There are things my father's said to me that I've picked over for most of my adult life, despite the fact that he probably doesn't even remember saying them.

I love my step-mom. I really do. Even if I didn't like her for myself, I love her for the change that she's made in my dad's life. I guess, at one point, my dad might have been happy with my mother. But if so, I don't really remember it. I mostly remember them ignoring each other. To me, it's like watching someone do magic tricks, to see my dad actually having conversation during dinner. To care about what other people say or do. My step-mom has done wonders for my dad.

And she's a sweet woman on her own merits.

What I didn't mention about my Christmas visit was that I was already feeling bad when we got there. My father had made it clear that he was gifting us with his old Buick as a Christmas present. Plus, I was pretty sure he intended to purchase a digital camera for me. Both of those things, he did. And for Jess's birthday, he gave her a car seat. And a trust fund for Jess that will probably pay most - if not the sum - of her college expenses.

Do you have any idea what sort of obligation that puts on me? To a man who's birthday I forgot this year because I was so busy that I completely let it slip my mind until after Christmas? I know that gift giving isn't supposed to be a contest, that it's not about who can give more. But jeez, I spend every single fucking holiday feeling inferior. I can't compete. What can you get for the couple that not only has everything, but has everythingx10? I have spent every single Christmas for the last eight years - at least! - feeling pathetic. Feeling broke. I make Christmas cookies because I can't manage my own finances well enough to actually get someone a gift of any value.

I spent $70 that I didn't really have and over 15 hours putting together a scrapbook to give to my dad and step-mom. And for a change, I really felt like I'd been able to do something that they'd like and care about. I was really, really looking forward to them opening it and looking at it.

Instead, I spent a few days feeling slovenly and filthy and lazy and inconvenient. I know, -believe me-, I understand that my step-mom didn't mean for me to feel that way. I know that. But it doesn't change the fact that I spent at least forty minutes hiding in the back bedroom crying over feeling inadequate. And it was partially this very large amount of self-esteem problem that caused the post I made previously. And it is easier to be angry than it is to write about how sick and soulhurt I am about things. That I feel poor and wretched, like someone's charity case. That I feel like nothing I ever do is good enough.

I don't like feeling that way, much less do I feel like talking about it, most of the time. Instead, I tend to get angry. I focus on the few things that I can be pissed about then the whole rest of my fucking life that I feel ashamed of.

That I took it out on my step-mother was not nice of me. It wasn't. I recognize the fact that sometimes I'm just not a nice person. That I hurt her feelings was unintentional. I didn't know she read here, or I would have been a little less harsh.

That being said, I find it runs me into difficulties. Again.

The big question is, of course, now what?

Do I delete the offending entry? Edit it?

And what do I do with the blog? I hate feeling pressured or censored. That I have to watch what I say and what I think. The whole point of my blog is to give me someplace to bitch and rant and rave. If I have to watch everything that I say, I may not say anything at all.

I mean, see, this is the thing. I know Dee wasn't meaning for me to feel the way I did. And I know she wasn't meaning to drive me bats. And I know that she is really doing her absolute best to make things "perfect" for the holidays. And while I may have some problems with perfect - especially where it concerns me, since I'm about as far off from perfect as a person can get - I do appreciate her efforts. Which is why I didn't say anything to her about it.

But this is my blog. In essence, my diary. My thoughts and my feelings and my self. And I like sharing it. But if I have to put on my Lee-press on smile and pretend that everything ok when it's not... or even not vent about something stupid... I mean, once I finished writing the entry, I felt better.

It's difficult to figure out. Where to draw the line between saying what's "acceptable" and what's true.

I'm very upset and very frustrated today.

Posted by tisfan at January 07, 2005 06:47 PM