![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosMy dream interpretation below was too easy. Yes, I think it means what I wrote earlier about misgivings about venturing into new territories -- but it also reflects a suddenly very immediate concern about inadvertently violating the boundaries of others.
It's about LJ.
When I started this journal, I expected it would be a place where I would be totally anonymous, and could share anything without worrying about the impact on my personal life. I didn't have my location or age on my Info Page. I tried to avoid any detail that might connect someone back to me.
As time passed, and a wonderful community began to gather here, I lost a lot of that need to stay totally anonymous. At least a third of my LJ-only friends, and perhaps more (I haven't counted) know my real name, have corresponded with me and/or spoken on the phone. I've met some people face-to-face, and added other new offline friends and acquaintances to my Friends list. I am no longer anonymous.
But it goes beyond a formal revelation of my offline identity. Anyone who has read this journal regularly knows me, even if you don't know my name or haven't connected with me outside my journal. I am truthful here, and I connect with those of you who come here as authentically as I can, often with my heart as well as my mind.
This is no longer a journal. It's a salon. A place where some wonderful, often fascinating, people come to visit and engage in conversation that does range "from the sublime to the ridiculous." And you know each other too, even if you don't know real names. I see you in other friends' salons. You comment on each other's comments.
So what happens when things start happening in my personal life with people on LJ? Or when people I know on LJ start to become so much a part of my life that they know my household? I once thought that a screen name was an effective identity cloak. It's not. If I write about something personal involving LJ-Friend-Fill-in-the-Blank, I'm talking about someone in your community, even if you aren't friends/Friends. Someone you know, and could know better just by clicking an icon on their journal.
I hadn't realized until LJ how much of an exhibitionist I was. I think it comes from a lifelong desire to be deeply known, especially through writing. I've kept journals since elementary school, and I've always assumed that one day they would be read by those who cared about me (if nothing else, after my death). And LJ has not disappointed me in this regard. Or rather: it surprised me by meeting a need that I had never fully acknowledged to myself.
But I don't live in isolation.
It may be "my story" when I tell it, but suddenly I'm aware that the stakes may be higher than I had realized for the other people involved, in some circumstances.
I do not want to -- as I did in my dream -- blunder thoughtlessly across the boundary, violate the privacy of my friends.
I'm going to have to be much more deliberately conscious about what I write here, use more and different filters, and check in regularly with those who are closest to me.
But, as I pause before I click the "update journal" button, I have to smile, because in some ways this is a good problem to have. It means I have friends here who have made this feel like a very safe space, a place where I can speak freely and honestly without fear of judgement or mockery. And I have friends with whom I will be doing/saying things of such intimacy and signficance that I need to be careful with how I handle that which has been entrusted to me. And those are Good Things.
It's about LJ.
When I started this journal, I expected it would be a place where I would be totally anonymous, and could share anything without worrying about the impact on my personal life. I didn't have my location or age on my Info Page. I tried to avoid any detail that might connect someone back to me.
As time passed, and a wonderful community began to gather here, I lost a lot of that need to stay totally anonymous. At least a third of my LJ-only friends, and perhaps more (I haven't counted) know my real name, have corresponded with me and/or spoken on the phone. I've met some people face-to-face, and added other new offline friends and acquaintances to my Friends list. I am no longer anonymous.
But it goes beyond a formal revelation of my offline identity. Anyone who has read this journal regularly knows me, even if you don't know my name or haven't connected with me outside my journal. I am truthful here, and I connect with those of you who come here as authentically as I can, often with my heart as well as my mind.
This is no longer a journal. It's a salon. A place where some wonderful, often fascinating, people come to visit and engage in conversation that does range "from the sublime to the ridiculous." And you know each other too, even if you don't know real names. I see you in other friends' salons. You comment on each other's comments.
So what happens when things start happening in my personal life with people on LJ? Or when people I know on LJ start to become so much a part of my life that they know my household? I once thought that a screen name was an effective identity cloak. It's not. If I write about something personal involving LJ-Friend-Fill-in-the-Blank, I'm talking about someone in your community, even if you aren't friends/Friends. Someone you know, and could know better just by clicking an icon on their journal.
I hadn't realized until LJ how much of an exhibitionist I was. I think it comes from a lifelong desire to be deeply known, especially through writing. I've kept journals since elementary school, and I've always assumed that one day they would be read by those who cared about me (if nothing else, after my death). And LJ has not disappointed me in this regard. Or rather: it surprised me by meeting a need that I had never fully acknowledged to myself.
But I don't live in isolation.
It may be "my story" when I tell it, but suddenly I'm aware that the stakes may be higher than I had realized for the other people involved, in some circumstances.
I do not want to -- as I did in my dream -- blunder thoughtlessly across the boundary, violate the privacy of my friends.
I'm going to have to be much more deliberately conscious about what I write here, use more and different filters, and check in regularly with those who are closest to me.
But, as I pause before I click the "update journal" button, I have to smile, because in some ways this is a good problem to have. It means I have friends here who have made this feel like a very safe space, a place where I can speak freely and honestly without fear of judgement or mockery. And I have friends with whom I will be doing/saying things of such intimacy and signficance that I need to be careful with how I handle that which has been entrusted to me. And those are Good Things.
