Just....wow.
I've been spending a lot of time today reading other people's secrets. I'm dazzled by all the bravery, all the things people want to get of their chests.
And then the comments! I've only read a couple of comments that could be construed as negative, but for the most part they were comforting, sympathetic, supportive, offering advice, even. One commenter asked the author of the post she was reading to email her privately if she wanted some one-on-one help with what she's going through.
There's a lot of emotion floating around out there today, gang. I'm gonna go wade through some more of it right now.
Showing posts with label BlogSecret 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BlogSecret 2008. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
BlogSecret: Anonymity
Well, it's the 18th. BlogSecret day. Last Friday I wrote up my secret and sent it out to Nilsa at SoMi. On Sunday evening I received the secret I'm to post. It reproduced below, unedited and unabridged. I haven't even read it yet -- I just cut-and-pasted it over from my email.
Anonymity
I never thought writing an anonymous post would be so difficult - but the opportunity to write about virtually anything was almost overwhelming! Should I talk about that time in college when the paramedics came, or maybe I should write about how hard it's been trying to get pregnant.
Then I realized that, for the most part, my blog already is anonymous. My husband doesn't know about it, nor do any of my friends and only one family member knows - but she stumbled upon it by accident and has since lost interest in reading what is basically a journal (she probably would have killed for the opportunity when we were young). So if I already have anonymity what do I have to tell that I wouldn't want to put on my blog?
And then it hit me, there is one thing that I've never told anyone else. It's the thing that only my husband knows (well a fair number of strangers and court people too, but no one I actually know). We declared bankruptcy this year.
Now you may think that there is no shame in declaring bankruptcy, tons of people do it every year and it's no big deal. And you'd be right, it's probably not a big deal to most people and given the financial situation that we were in we really didn't have another choice. But for me it was a huge deal - it meant that we had failed. We had failed at being adults, at being normal everyday citizens. To me it seemed that we had become those people that couldn't take responsibility for their own lives and had to be rescued by the government. We were taking a hand-out.
I'm assuming that I felt this way because of how I was raised. We were always well-off enough that we never really needed any assistance. Even the times that our family was in a financial hard place, I don't remember my parents having to ask for assistance from family, friends or government. I was raised knowing that you made your bed and you had to sleep in it - so when we had made our financial situation unbearable it still seemed to me that it was our responsibility to fix it, not someone else's.
I've since gotten over that feeling, to a degree. I realize that we really did not have a choice in the matter. It was either declare bankruptcy and save our house or lose everything. I've also accepted the fact that it was not just our fault - sure we had some bad spending habits, but our loss of income and move had severely impacted our ability to pay for things that we had purchased long ago. I also realize that having to declare bankruptcy has made us better at managing our money and we've become more responsible spenders and savers.
The only thing I haven't gotten over is the sense of shame and failure that I still carry with me - and I'm not sure that I should. Shame is a powerful motivator and maybe it can keep me motivated to never let our finances get out of control again.
As for telling anyone else, well, let's just keep that between us for now.
If you want to read more of BlogSecret, SoMi has a participants blogroll posted here.
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Anonymity
I never thought writing an anonymous post would be so difficult - but the opportunity to write about virtually anything was almost overwhelming! Should I talk about that time in college when the paramedics came, or maybe I should write about how hard it's been trying to get pregnant.
Then I realized that, for the most part, my blog already is anonymous. My husband doesn't know about it, nor do any of my friends and only one family member knows - but she stumbled upon it by accident and has since lost interest in reading what is basically a journal (she probably would have killed for the opportunity when we were young). So if I already have anonymity what do I have to tell that I wouldn't want to put on my blog?
And then it hit me, there is one thing that I've never told anyone else. It's the thing that only my husband knows (well a fair number of strangers and court people too, but no one I actually know). We declared bankruptcy this year.
Now you may think that there is no shame in declaring bankruptcy, tons of people do it every year and it's no big deal. And you'd be right, it's probably not a big deal to most people and given the financial situation that we were in we really didn't have another choice. But for me it was a huge deal - it meant that we had failed. We had failed at being adults, at being normal everyday citizens. To me it seemed that we had become those people that couldn't take responsibility for their own lives and had to be rescued by the government. We were taking a hand-out.
I'm assuming that I felt this way because of how I was raised. We were always well-off enough that we never really needed any assistance. Even the times that our family was in a financial hard place, I don't remember my parents having to ask for assistance from family, friends or government. I was raised knowing that you made your bed and you had to sleep in it - so when we had made our financial situation unbearable it still seemed to me that it was our responsibility to fix it, not someone else's.
I've since gotten over that feeling, to a degree. I realize that we really did not have a choice in the matter. It was either declare bankruptcy and save our house or lose everything. I've also accepted the fact that it was not just our fault - sure we had some bad spending habits, but our loss of income and move had severely impacted our ability to pay for things that we had purchased long ago. I also realize that having to declare bankruptcy has made us better at managing our money and we've become more responsible spenders and savers.
The only thing I haven't gotten over is the sense of shame and failure that I still carry with me - and I'm not sure that I should. Shame is a powerful motivator and maybe it can keep me motivated to never let our finances get out of control again.
As for telling anyone else, well, let's just keep that between us for now.
-----
If you want to read more of BlogSecret, SoMi has a participants blogroll posted here.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Cue: Carly Simon
So last night I sent my entry to Nilsa of SoMi for BlogSecret.
I'll be getting the secret I'm to post on this blog sometime tomorrow or Monday, along with the address of the blog that will be posting mine. On November 18, the post that you read here will not be from me. I won't have any idea who the author is.
Nilsa has suggested that on the 18th all the participants (nearly 90 of us at last count) go visit and comment on the blogs of at least 5 other participants. I'm guessing that there will be a BlogSecret blogroll on SoMi that day. I'm trying to decide whether I'm also going to go visit my entry see what sort of reaction it gets. It could be anywhere from "This is boring," through "I can relate," all the way up to "You're a bitch."
Too late to worry about it now.
Oh, the title of this post? That's a reference to something my mom used to say when I was younger. Any time we were hanging around waiting for something to happen she'd say, "What we need now is a little Carly Simon." And that is in turn a reference to an old Heinz ketchup commercial that would play "Anticipation" as the ketchup s-l-o-w-l-y poured out of the bottle ('cause it's so thick, y'see).
I'll be getting the secret I'm to post on this blog sometime tomorrow or Monday, along with the address of the blog that will be posting mine. On November 18, the post that you read here will not be from me. I won't have any idea who the author is.
Nilsa has suggested that on the 18th all the participants (nearly 90 of us at last count) go visit and comment on the blogs of at least 5 other participants. I'm guessing that there will be a BlogSecret blogroll on SoMi that day. I'm trying to decide whether I'm also going to go visit my entry see what sort of reaction it gets. It could be anywhere from "This is boring," through "I can relate," all the way up to "You're a bitch."
Too late to worry about it now.
Oh, the title of this post? That's a reference to something my mom used to say when I was younger. Any time we were hanging around waiting for something to happen she'd say, "What we need now is a little Carly Simon." And that is in turn a reference to an old Heinz ketchup commercial that would play "Anticipation" as the ketchup s-l-o-w-l-y poured out of the bottle ('cause it's so thick, y'see).
Monday, November 10, 2008
BlogSecret
Hey look everyone! Something else on my sidebar! I'm collecting so many badges lately, I'm beginning to feel like a Girl Scout. What's this one about? Keep reading and find out.
Nilsa, over at SoMi, had an idea. How about we do a 1-day blog version of Post Secret?
It's called BlogSecret, and it's happening on November 18th. Since November seems to the month for joining things, I thought I'd take this on as well. I'll be posting someone's blog entry about their secret here on my blog, and my secret will get posted on some stranger's blog. Details and a much better description are here.
Anyone wanna join in? At last count she had almost 60 of us. The more, the merrier (and harder to trace).
Nilsa, over at SoMi, had an idea. How about we do a 1-day blog version of Post Secret?
It's called BlogSecret, and it's happening on November 18th. Since November seems to the month for joining things, I thought I'd take this on as well. I'll be posting someone's blog entry about their secret here on my blog, and my secret will get posted on some stranger's blog. Details and a much better description are here.
Anyone wanna join in? At last count she had almost 60 of us. The more, the merrier (and harder to trace).
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