Something happens when you blog about your current relationship.
When I mentioned in a writer support group that I had written a couple of posts to my boyfriend, one of the mentors there said how helpful it could be to have a reader in mind, especially in the early days when hardly anyone is reading a new blog. And I did love having a place to tell Christmas Dick what I was thinking and feeling—especially a place where I could make a public statement, even if the public consisted of a handful of people.
But today I wrote a blog post about my physical insecurities. Or the way I felt about them last week. And that is a topic I really don’t want to discuss with CD at the moment, because a) we’re both tired of talking about it; b) this is shit I need to work out on my own; c) talking about it excessively with him makes me seem less confident, even to myself, which makes me feel (and appear) less attractive. And that’s a shame, because more than 50% of the time, I feel confident—and at least 30% of the time, I am revoltingly pleased with myself.
(My reaction to my reflection a good portion of the time? “Damn, I’m cute.”)
But I do want to share thoughts about body image, good and bad, partly because it has a direct impact on my sexuality. Sometimes, that may require rehashing something here that CD and I have discussed ad nauseum. And I hate to think of him reading such a post and thinking, “God! Is she still obsessing about that?”
Because the thing is, I’m not. I won’t be, by the time anyone reads the post—probably not by the time I write it. Distance gives me the perspective I need to write about something semi-coherently.
But if I write about something, especially something negative, in the recent past, and CD reads it, and that gets him into the mental space we were in when I had those feelings, and then he re-reacts to them, and then I respond… shit.
It’s enough to make a sex blogger give up altogether, or only write about sex acts with past lovers (ehhhhn, still working up to having CD read that), or only write erotica. Or just write happy-happy “I’m so evolved and sexually free!” posts—as if you wouldn’t see through that in a minute.
So one piece of advice to avoid the hall of mirrors: think instead of a rearview mirror. And remember that this stuff I write about… by the time I’m writing, it’s in the past.