Blogging...

Lately, I have been doing a lot of thinking about blogging. Certainly as you may have noticed I have been doing more thinking about it than actual blogging. I am busy working on a new blog with more advanced features that will allow me to post more pictures, audio, video, or whatever else I may feel like posting, in a much more presentable format. I am thinking the new blog will have a private section for my friends and family, but I will still have public content for the rest of the world. What I am working with will allow for user registration so I can pick and choose what groups of readers have access to what parts of my life. It would be nice to have a more private section where I could share more information, but only with a controlled group who actually know me (I really don't want everything out there for the entire world to see).

Let's get back to the point of my "thinking about blogging" ... I guess I am just trying to figure out if I still even care to blog anymore. I think I am stuck on this point because I am looking at it from the standpoint of why I created this blog in the first place. I had just moved to France, was dealing with a ton of culture shock and had no friends. I wanted a place where I could vent semi-anonymously and seek out others in a similar situation as me. I enjoyed being able to freely speak openly since I really did not know any of the readers ... which is mainly why most of my friends and family from home do not know about this blog. I wanted to write for other expats who would better understand what I was going through. Some things my friends at home would just not get.

However, now I have made a lot of friends because of this blog, many of whom live in Paris where I now live as well. So currently I feel a little weird when I post openly about feelings, opinions, love-life, travels, etc since I have to see a lot of the readers on a weekly basis. Not that I am looking to hide anything from my friends, but mainly because I would rather talk about the same things in person with them instead of just having them read about it all here. I never want to be a person that when asked "How was your vacation?" I respond by telling them to check out the latest blog post I wrote about it. Since they are my friends, I would certainly much rather go out to dinner with them, tell them all about it and show them the photos so they can hear in my voice just how much fun I had.

But now of course I do not feel as comfortable writing about my feelings since sometimes things I use to write on here were more open just based on the semi-anonymity that I was allowed to have with the blog (or maybe "online journal" was always a more appropriate term). I guess it has just gotten hard to be open, when I know everyone I know here would see those things. Not that I have any secrets from my friends, but I guess it all comes down to if they want to know and we are friends then I would much rather have a conversation face to face and not have them just read about it here. I am usually pretty open with my friends, but sometimes before I was a little more open on this blog than I usually am just because I knew that the readers did not really know me or see me on a constant basis. I saw it as kind of like writing in a journal, where no one I really knew would see, but I could still benefit from some comments from people. So lately I have been a little shy to talk about what I am going through in my life, or how I feel about it since I don't want anything to be awkward between my friends and I.

So I think my issue is I need to reestablish what I want to have with my blog and attack it from a new angle. The open air vent about my life is now over since I have made friends. I am no longer just sitting in my apartment in Burgundy, trying to reach out to others so I don't feel as alone. I have friends now and a life after two years of relative solitude ... so I need to reformat this online experience to fit that new lifestyle. I would still like to share photos and stories from the trips I go on, information about restaurants I check out in Paris, fun stories from nights out on the town, and just anything else about my life with all of you... I guess what I am saying is be patient, I have not totally given up on blogging. I just have to finish my brainstorming and get the new site up, and then I will be back to share it all with you. :-)