Indecent Exposure

Indecent Exposure

Sometimes writing about my life candidly makes me feel free and empowered. Other times, like now, it makes me feel naked—vulnerable—exposed. I feel like everyone is looking at me and laughing. Why didn’t I keep my secrets as my own? Then no one would have the power to use them to hurt me.

What I have to ask myself now is how can the truth hurt me? How can someone use my life and my past against me? Only I can allow that to happen. When I think about some of the things I have done and I’m in a low mood—sometimes I feel stupid. I feel like I’m inherently less than other people who don’t seem to ever make mistakes. I feel like my life would be on a faster, better, track and I wouldn’t be so far behind if I hadn’t done so many idiotic, nonsensical, irresponsible things. I guess sharing them with everyone really solidifies them. I can’t deny or suppress my mistakes.

Sometimes it’s just fun to pretend. I can pretend I don’t make mistakes and that I’m exactly where I wanted to be right now. However, It’s difficult to pretend I’m someone else when I’ve exposed exactly who I am to so many readers. One of the hardest things about letting go and releasing my blog for the world to see is that I have no idea who’s reading it and what they are thinking. It’s public without exception. I can look at stats and see that in August 456 people read one of my blogs. Who were those people? Do I know them? I wonder if they were laughing at me or if they actually learned from me. Do I amuse them?

I honestly don’t mind amusing people a bit. That’s life and a little attention is OK as long as I choose when to participate. I am trying to get my story out there, after-all. What I really hate, is knowing that if I fail, I’m failing in front of an audience. I’ve already had many people ask me about my story, which means people are interested and they are paying attention. What if my husband quits his job and leaves me tomorrow—or my baby gets sick—or any number of personal things? Have I created a monster? I love the support I’ve gotten; I feed off of it. I almost depend on it. I love the admiration and applause that I’ve received; it makes me feel so good. Then, every once in a while, a mood strikes and I start to panic and question my choice. I question whether or not I really want to invite so many people into my life.

The question I ask myself that I can’t yet answer, is “am I helping anyone?” or “will I ever help anyone?”.  The problem is that I can’t know, so I have to take a leap of faith. It seems to me that I have to go all in, or all out. I have to trust my gut and trust humanity to judge me fairly. If they want to use my mistakes to make themselves feel better, they can feel free to do so; I have given them that opportunity. If people want to read in amusement, I invite it. If someone reads my story and decides they can change their life to—if they feel inspired to act—well then I’ve done what I set out to do and it outweighs all of those other “what ifs”. 

Advertisement