I thought I had always done a reasonably good job of keeping this blog anonymous. Today, I find out- not so much. I should have realised that sooner or later, someone from my real life was bound to seek it out or find out about it somehow. I'm more than a little disconcerted and frankly uncomfortable that the person in question chose to carry on reading it for some time without disclosing to me that they knew anything about it.
Ultimately I suppose I have only myself to blame- I am well aware that even something that attempts to be anonymous cannot be truly private if posted publicly for all to see. But- to use the best analogy I can come up with- it's one thing to walk around on a nudist beach, in the happy knowledge that you're entirely naked but who cares, because you don't know anybody and they don't know you, not really. It's another thing altogether to suddenly find yourself bumping into your boss and his wife or to discover that your cousin Bobby has spotted you from the neighbouring hotel and is watching you through a pair of binoculars. Time for a towel.
I'm not sure what to do about it. I was really needing this site again as a safe place to write and express myself. To-as my dear friend Anna put it, to give and receive support from people who have been there,who understand and can relate, albeit without necessarily having a "real life" relationship. But I know full well I'm going to have a problem carrying on if I have to self censor constantly, and to be honest I feel like I already do enough of it as it is. So I'm thinking here's my solution. I'll keep up what has been written until now. No point shutting the barn door after the mare has bolted. And I will keep posting generally with my towel on- I mean, I know you'll all be desperate to hear about my TSH results, right? But from now on, anything that I feel is particularly sensitive content will be placed on on my second password protected Typepad blog site (which I set up a gazillion years ago and never really used). I'll post a link here every time such a post is available.
It's far from ideal, I know- but it's the best I can do under the circumstances, for now. You can email me at barrenmare at gmail dot com to request a password.