Sunday, July 26, 2009

Mystery Solved

This morning over on My Bottom Smarts Bonnie has her usual Sunday Brunch Question...This week's question is about security on one's blog.. protecting your anonymity ... which made me remember back in May the scare i had .. thinking someone from the Island had found my secret life.. my blog.

i shut down The Journey for a couple of days. i tried rationalizing.. i tried being reasonable.. but all i was left with was fear. Someone had found my blog !!!

It made me think about the number of times Sir and i have been to munches/play parties and bumped into folks we knew from the vanilla world. The old adage - if they are there too you have nothing to worry about - always kept me calm.

BUT finding my blog seemed different somehow.. seemed more an invasion of my privacy? my private life ?? i am not sure.. i do know i felt panic.

The whole mystery was solved on Friday when lone wolf gave me a phone call. He was a parent of one of my "kids" and was my "oh my god" moment when he came to a munch a few years back. He and i have stayed in touch .. now that his children have moved on.., and he has moved on. Stayed in touch translates to a phone call every month or so.

In our catch-up with each other's news on Friday.. i brought up how someone from the Island had found my blog........ as the words left my mouth i thought "lone wolf??" but he doesn't have a home computer.... but i asked anyway....... had he popped onto my blog recently. He apologised and said no... not for a while now. i figured he couldn't have been him.. but then he mentioned it was at least a couple of months. And he had logged on from the Island - on a friend's pc. Mystery Solved.

And i realized... that what i write here is me.. the private part of me.. the part very few get to see...

And i realized that i can't live my life in fear that someone find this blog....

i either do this.. or i don't..

If i don't then i run and hide...

If i do it.. then i do it.. out in the open.. if someone finds me.. they find me.. (bless swan for teaching me a lesson about honesty )

All of this is to say.......... The Journey is back - with all it's 'features' from home corners to grandbabies to my bare ass to a direct link to Sir's blog back in the right hand column.........


5 comments:

  1. I can understand your panic over someone from your vanilla world visiting. I regularly check stats to see if anyone from my city visits. There are a few, but probably folks looking for Harry Potter sites (I hope).

    I'm glad you've resolved it in your head, and with lone wolf.

    Hugs,
    Hermione

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  2. Welcome back :-)
    I think that all of us who do this; who write about our lives and our hearts out here in the open; have to somehow make our peace with the exposure that brings. Each one of us has to determine what level of risk we are willing to accept; what degree of caution and hiddeness we need to be able to continue; where the balance is for us. No one can do that for us -- it is simply too personal and too close to the heart of our lives. There is a very real potential cost to being here, and being honest, and being as out as we are. On the other hand, there is a most definite cost to splitting our SELVES up into all kinds of tidy little compartments and trying to keep the bits and pieces in their separate boxes. Perhaps some of us reveal more than would seem prudent to most people. In the final analysis, I think we have to tell our truth in the way that seems, to us, to have the most integrity.

    All the best!

    Hugs, swan

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  3. As always, swan has said pretty much all I would have said, and in a much better way too. There is a cost to both choices, be that complete openenss on a public site, or 'compartmentalising'.

    I shut down my public site when a family member discovered it, then shut down my private site when a WP glitch meant it suddenly became open. I've taken some time out to decide how best to go forward and came to the conclusion that I'm at my happiest having a public site where whatever I post there won't cause me any concern whoever comes across it, and sharing those more intimate and private bits of our lives via email.

    As swan say, its a choice we each have to make for ourselves.....very personal, and no universal right or wrong answer.

    love and hugs xxx

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  4. I just read your comment on Bonnie's blog and wanted to stop by and say I am glad you answered that mystery.

    I know how something that seems so minor in retrospect can seem like Armageddon is closing in at the time but it was smart to be concerned as blogging, while fun and maybe even therapeutic for many of us, is not worth the destruction of your real life.

    I hope that will be the last time you have to go through something like that!

    ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
    ☼☼☼Dante☼☼☼
    ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥


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  5. I'm selfishly glad it is all back in one place; I have been remiss (and in being so, missed) your vanilla news. I like seeing the whole person.

    I also understand how scary that can be. I know that I decided some time ago I would let happen what happens. While I don't talk about my blog to many people, there is of course always the chance someone will come across it. At one point, one of my daughter's friends left a comment (on one of my older blogs).

    But I figured, I'm 53 years old. I'm not breaking any laws. This is a large part of who I am. Like it or lump it. If a "vanilla" friend finds it and is appalled, well so be it.

    My kids may or may not come across it but can assure you- if they DID they would expunge all memory of it from their minds! We have an agreement in our house; I don't interfere or spy on them and they don't on me (keeping in mind they're all grown up).

    Brave morningstar!

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