If you mine back into my earlier blog posts, you will find Bouncing Baby Blogger Micah broaching some dangerous personal territory: allegations of emotional abuse, TMI disclosures, and questionable editorial judgement.

It is no fun for the other parties involved when they see themselves depicted in an unflattering or downright nasty light. I tried to be fair, and I tried to find places where I was also at fault, but I know that I have a persistent self-righteous streak. In print, this comes across as, “Look at how fair and objective I’m being, but really he’s awful.” Such posts also come off as passive-aggressive when you know that your reading audience is largely limited to people who know the exact identity of this unnamed bad guy.

In my defense, I started a blog to indulge the idea of having a potentially worldwide readership. Anyone in the world could type in ten characters on their browser and have access to my words. It’s a thrilling conceit. But in the real world, anonymity is harder to come by. They knew who I was talking about.

So I laid off those types of personal posts to keep peace in my relationships.

But I’m tired of that. I want to speak my mind. I don’t just think about the news cycle and politics and the common good. And I can only comment so much about pop culture. How do I proceed? How do I bare my soul without… well, you read the title of the post.

I’m blessed to have a partner who, as a general rule, doesn’t mind what I do or say. He regards me as a totally autonomous human, and he is self-possessed enough not to feel lessened by anything others say about him. If I were to get into confessional mode, he would be the most exposed. I assert this only because of the closeness of our relationship–these confessions could be good, bad, or indifferent and simply embarrassing.

Still, it’s bad business to discuss one’s personal issues on a blog when you haven’t articulated them to the affected party. And believe me, something would come tumbling off my keyboard and onto the internet that I hadn’t hashed out with him–there’s no stopping that without some deliberate effort. And my other friends–they are more sensitive and would not appreciate my oversharing their lives, even “anonymously.”

I don’t expect to resolve this issue in a blog post. But I do appreciate you all brainstorming with me.

Maybe this is the jump-off point for my career as a novelist! I could channel all my relationship anxieties into a fictional character and then spend the entire book tour downplaying the autobiographical elements of my novel and their connection to this stray blog post I just happened to write before I started work on my novel.

Maybe I start a totally anonymous blog elsewhere where I expose my innermost secrets. Then my readership could be absolutely zero, since I would have no way to promote it without attaching it to my bankable personality. Or I could call the site Deep Dark Secrets of My Life… Acted Out by Cute Kitties who Misspell Words. (I Can Haz Long-Term Relationship?!)

Nope… I think I should continue to post as myself and post my real-life concerns. If there’s something personal that I’m itching to post, I will vet it with anyone mentioned in the post.

*Sigh* I guess that’s the only responsible thing to do, even though it violates my lifelong policy of just putting words down on paper and not doing any additional legwork.

Chalk it up to my growth as  a writer in 2018.