I've been keeping this blog for a few months now, mostly just as my own personal sounding-board and ranting space; more recently, as a tenative paw-pat on the nose of the universe. (God, I've been spending WAY too much time around my cats.) But since I put this blog out there, put it on chicagobloggers and the webring, I've been much more self-conscious about how it presents me. Not so much through the style--I've never really cared whether people like my writing style or not, as I'm perfectly happy with it and it's served me well thus far. Nor with the content; to be self-conscious about the content would imply that I have regrets, and truly I don't. I have "things which I would have rather had turn out differently", but that's not the same as a regret, I don't believe.
No, I'm more self-conscious of the gaps, of everything I haven't said...and of how things appear. For example: If I were to stumble across this blog, my first reaction--based on appearance alone, not content-- would probably be Eeeeewwwww....why the HELL is this blog PINK?
Well, there's a very good reason. And unlike 99% of my recent posts, it actually fits in with the original rationale for this blog, at least somewhat.
My blog is pink because it is MINE, in a way my house will never be. Nothing in my house is pink; very early on in the relationship, even before I moved out of my old North Side apartment, LJ established his very clear antipathy for the color. Not, mind you, that I was planning on girly-ing up my house like that, pinkifying it all over or anything like that. It was a compromise, and I accepted it; and honestly, it was a very small compromise.
But in everyone's life there needs to be ONE spot where there is no compromise, and in my life, this is that place. I know I've taken pains to conceal my identity; that's more to -allow- this space to remain uncompromised, not a compromise on its own. I have a job, neighbors, a nosy-ass extended family, and two ex-husbands, at least one of whom has Googled me repeatedly and called it "accidental". (There is NO SUCH THING as an "accidental Google"!) And even though I have no regrets, I would really rather not hear from any of these jerks, a category in which I include a substantial portion of my local relatives....especially if they're armed with the knowledge that I'm a twice-divorced former heroin addict in an interracial relationship, living in the middle of the murder capital of Chicago. Plus, my mom would pitch a giant electric FIT if she knew I was publicizing the details of my life. (Not that my mother's disapproval upsets me; but I sort of consider it as analogous to mosquito bites: they don't kill you, but they're irritating, and should be avoided wherever possible.)
Back when I was still married and JP and I were just getting together, in order to enable myself to function, I borrowed a notion that seems to have echoes here. Back then, once I walked into that 3rd-floor apartment, the rules of my "normal" life were suspended and I was free to do and say whatever I wanted. That room in the turret was our own personal autonomous zone, a sanctuary without judgements...or, even if there were those who wanted to judge, while we were in that room they could be ignored. That was the first place in my life where I remember feeling free...well, this blog is another one. No one in my real life knows it exists, and so I can write what I want to write without worrying about who it might offend.
And because it's mine, because I don't have to worry about anyone else's opinion of it--that's why it's pink, at least for the moment. If you're reading this and it -isn't- pink, it's because I got tired of pink and moved on to something else....because I can.
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