Warning: Some will consider this one of those navel-gazing posts that bloggers are supposed to avoid. Oh well. It’s what’s on my mind. And some might think this sounds whiny or something. There’s no whine behind any of this. Just some thinking and sorting.

I just went back and visited my original blog when it was Two Talent Living. It doesn’t look quite right because all of the pictures were removed when the blog moved to its own domain (www.TwoTalentLiving.com) which it was before it became A Gracious Home. But the content is there. I went back to remember why I started blogging.

I started blogging because I had something to say. Mostly I wanted to encourage other people and have a place to post little things like quotes and recipes and stuff. I hoped a few people would read it but that was about it.

The first time blogging completely changed for me was when I did the Blogs of Beauty Awards in 2005. It was around the holidays and the amount of participation it garnered far exceeded anything I would have even imagined. It also brought out all kinds of people who wanted to tell me what to do and why I was doing things wrong, etc. There was theological controversy. I think that was also when I picked up one of my long-term trolls. It was both very rewarding and very stressful.

The second time I did the Blogs of Beauty Awards (2006) blogging changed for me again. I had the experience of being shunned by some of the winners who would not even mention the awards on their blogs because of my unwillingness to agree with them on certain theological topics. Other winners never posted their awards and I don’t know why. I’m not sure if they didn’t want to toot their own horns or they didn’t want to link to my blog for some reason. It was very disappointing to me that this happened. I could care less about the “publicity” of the winners linking to me, but if you could read the nomination letters that come in and how excited these women are to honor their favorite bloggers, you would understand what I mean. I also experienced more theological controversy and that was draining again.

The next time was the discussion about PayPerPost. And then the whole coupon discussion. Each one has taken something away from the blogging experience for me.

And then there is the thought of having a little girl to protect. It was one thing to blog about her when I was pregnant. It is another thing to publicly expose her to whoever comes to my blog.

And then there are the trolls. I have several that I know of. Apparently some people don’t have anything better to do than make up email accounts at the free services and try to pass themselves off as different people. Some of these even do it while at work. I know because I can see where their mail is coming from and some of them are using their internet connections at work to do this. That’s really dumb, but they keep doing it. I know because I keep screen shots of their visits just in case they come in handy someday.

I’m pretty much a what you see is what you get type person. And more and more I’m realizing that although that may work fairly well in living that way in real life, I’m not comfortable living that way online.

So that brings me to the issue of transparency online. How much do you reveal about yourself? How many of your deepest thoughts to you put out there for anyone to read? How much of your family life do you share?

I wrote one post about the first year of parenting and the lack of support we felt. It brought some good discussion and I’m glad. There were a few other posts that I planned on writing about the first year of parenting, but every time I think about being that vulnerable I have a check in my spirit. Will people think I’m whining? Will people look down at me for being honest about things? I think ever since the PayPerPost discussion I have become more and more reticent to share a lot about my personal life. After the coupon post I’ve become more reluctant to share my thoughts on topics that I know are going to be a lightning rod for some people because I am daring to speak out and say what I don’t like about something.

It’s too bad that bloggers have to make choices about what to share and what not to out of safety issues, whether it is physical, emotional or social safety. It’s disappointing to think of not discussing deeper issues or raising the occasional hot topic because I do think that people should be able to talk about these things in a productive manner. But I’ve really come to question whether it is worth the risk in terms of time, energy and emotion.

So when I said I was thinking about the direction to head with AGH, those are some of the things I’ve been thinking about. I’ve made the choice all along in my blogging to not operate out of fear, but I’m rethinking that. Although maybe it isn’t so much that it is about fear as much as it is about being a good steward of what is entrusted to me. That includes my time, my daughter, my gifts, etc.

So that’s what I’m thinking about. I don’t have a tidy conclusion to this. Those are just my thoughts that I’ve been mulling over recently.