Transparency

Blogging is still new to me. So I am interested in how people respond to mine. I am often greeted by those who have not ventured into the waters of social networks and blogging forums with blank stares. They haven’t quite figured out what the point of it is. I had one friend tell me they had never read a blog, but would definitely check mine out. Those are balanced with the many who tell me they love my subject, that my voice is honest and transparent and are certain many will relate to what I am writing.

Still I was caught off guard by the reaction of a long time friend. She wrote in an email that she had looked at it, but she was “too private” a person to think of chronicling her life on line.

I found myself sensitive to this reaction. My blog is out there in cyberspace. I will never know all who read my innermost thoughts on my road to reinvention. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps I should just keep my transparency to myself.

I was raised in a Greek American household where you are taught that transparency is not a good thing. It is inherent in Greek culture to keep your business not just within your family but literally within the walls of the home you live, which might exclude a brother or sister living somewhere else. It was exactly that dynamic which inspired me to write about the secrets people keep in my novel, Forty Days.

So I wondered, why was I not concerned with my privacy? I admit to a fear that no one would want to read what I blogged and follow my journey. But I had not considered any about my privacy. It is true that in the past I had always refrained from letting the world know the truth of who I am. Why now is it something I am OK with?

And then I got it. I am on a journey of reinvention. Everything is changing.

Even just a few years ago, I was “too private” a person as well to let any but a select few hear my voice. I was not ready to be published. I was not ready to blog. I was not ready to hear the reactions of those who love my writing nor the reactions of those who do not. I was not ready to leave a twenty five year career for uncharted waters.

I was not ready to be transparent.