Why do we blog?

Reading Stormy's blog today made me feel... a lot of different emotions.  I'll take the safest one and write about why I think many of us blog.

In the past, lots of people had journals and diaries that they kept, where they wrote their thoughts and feelings down.  It has always been a good, therapeutic, healthy way to release emotion and sift through ones' thoughts in order to better understand them.

Today, we have a more modern version of the journal: the blog.  Blogging makes journaling more interesting because a person can get others' viewpoints about things.  Sure, there are bad points too: people can be mean, drama can get started.  That can't happen with a private journal.  But there is also the potential to hear new ideas, have other sides of an issue pointed out, and get different insights into how to handle things.  Not to mention the greatest perk (in my opinion): connecting with other people who feel/think/act like you do and can commisserate/celebrate/laugh/cry with you, albeit in a limited capacity.  And whatever some may say, online friendships can be just as emotional and real as any others.

All of that, and yet a person still has no need to give out her real name unless she decides she wants to.

Now, I'm not saying that blogging should replace real social interaction, or even necesarily the private journal. (I've actually got both.) It's just that it satisfies a bunch of needs--to write out/sift through one's thoughts, to get others' feedback & input, to connect with others who think like you do, even just to feel like you are communicating somehow, at all--all in one spot.

When I first started this blog, I didn't tell my husband.  Then again, I knew he wouldn't think it was a big deal.  Why should my writing down my feelings and thoughts threaten him?  He knows that is how I get things out anyway.  Sure, it would probably cause interaction with other people, but that's why I'm little butterfly here and not _______________.  :)

I told Daddy about my blog after a couple of weeks, when it occurred to me that it might be a great way to express the feelings that I couldn't seem to say to him out loud in real life.  And now, even to this day, it often serves as a vehicle for him to find out how I felt during and after a punishment, or to understand why I am feeling bratty or stubborn at a particular time.  Because often, I don't even know these things, until I am able to write them out and examine them.  And even if I did have an idea, I can't articulate that kind of stuff out loud; my fingers can write it, but my mouth has a hard time saying it.  And... even if I could say it, I wouldn't, because talking about emotions is super hard for me.

In his last blog, Daddy said he was proud of me for writing about my punishment and how I felt.  That made me feel so good.  He never says he's worried about his public image or that I'm sharing too much of us or that I might be saying the wrong things.  What he cares about the most has to do purely with our relationship: my getting my feelings and thoughts out there for me to process and for him to be able to see.

I never worry about changing my writing because he will read it.  BUT, he also can't read it before I'm done, because if he stands over my shoulder and reads, or reads when I am halfway done, I DO get self conscious and start editing myself.  I'd feel the same way if he said he had to read my blogs before I posted them.  Yes, I did give myself, entirely, to my Daddy, and I do trust him to care for me.  But if he didn't trust me to be able to formulate and write about my own thoughts and feelings, it would make me feel small and extremely disrespected.  Maybe if it was a certain post for a certain reason... but every post?  I just couldn't do it, although I know that some do.  (I hope that, if those types are reading this, no offense is taken, for none is meant.)

I guess the thing I am getting at is this: as a submissive and a woman, I needed to find something that validated that I wasn't the only one out there who was experiencing these kinds of feelings.  When I went online and searched, one of the things I found that touched me to the core was this blogging community.  This is a place that I can share with, a place that doesn't think my relationship is abnormal or "abusive", a place that supports me, that doesn't mind if I'm moody sometimes, a place that shares with me and has helped me learn and grow as a person, and a place where I feel like I've been able to connect with some really wonderful people.  Most of us are, indeed, real people with real families and real problems.  We don't subtract from each others' "actual" lives by knowing each other, usually quite the opposite.  We are all different, yet have some similar ideas or feelings that draw us together and form us into a community.

At least for me, in my world, blogging here isn't me sneaking around, trying to escape my real life and form attachments away from my husband.  It's me, spewing feelings out onto a page, trying to understand myself better, and hopefully thereby enrich our life and our relationship.