Why do I write? Why do you read?

Why is what I write interesting to other people? Why is it interesting to you? Do you have MS? Do you care about what's happening to me? Do you even know or like me? Are you are a voyeur who likes to see inside random other people's hearts and minds? Does reading this help you in some way? Do you compare yourself to me and feel better about yourself? Is it entertainment?

I found out that someone I don't know incredibly well and who I didn't think had all that much in common with me is reading this blog on regular basis. I don't MIND exactly, but it made me start wondering about why I write and why you read. Obviously, I am not just writing to privately process my MS and my life or all this would be in a journal in my nightstand and not OUT HERE for all the world to see.

I've kept a hold-in-your-hand-and-write-with-a-pen-kind-of-journal at different points in my life. When I was 22, a boyfriend read my journal and learned what I thought was the worst secret in the world that I was keeping from him at the time. I was so consumed with guilt when he told me that he read the secret that it took me almost a year to be pissed off at him for invading my privacy. I have never kept a journal regularly since then. I think I've been afraid of someone reading all my secrets again. So, what's this blog/book all about? Did I just decide to put the secrets out there, on my terms, so they couldn't be discovered against my will?

You know Carrie on Sex and the City? I know she's fictional (I have MS cognitive issues; I am not delusional) but I always wondered how Big and other, various boyfriends felt about her analyzing their relationships in print. (She was a newspaper columnist.) Am I a Carrie wannabe (with MANY MANY MORE pounds and cheaper shoes)? Do I somehow NEED to do this publicly? Am I an emotional exhibitionist? For that matter, are all women emotional exhibitionists of one level or another?

Most of my friends need to talk with other people (usually other women) about their experiences, interactions, thoughts, pain, angst, fears, joy, confusion, etc. to figure out what they are feeling and to process those feelings. Some men, too, but I think, for the most part, that sort of thing is frowned upon in heterosexual male circles. I remember having a knock down, drag out fight with my ex and then hearing him talk about the Yankees on the phone with a very close friend a few minutes later. I don't think he wasn't bothered by the fight; I just think he had no clue how to get support from a male friend around it. Bald Hot Ken, on the other hand, has a committee (some read this blog, in fact). I know he shares stuff with this group of close friends and he gets support from them, but I'm not sure if the same level of sharing is going on or at least not in the same way. Do they share all the details?

When I was in high school, my female friends and I worried that boys told their friends all about any and all sexual encounters. I remember thinking that if I did such and such with so and so, all his friends would know if my boobs were too small, if my thighs were too jiggly, or if I had bad breath. Now I'm not sure. I don't think they share that level of details. About sex or about anything. It was probably more like "Ya! She put out!" or "I touched titty!" I don't know if they NOTICE the same level of details in us or in themselves. If I kissed a boy and knocked heads by mistake, I would share the embarrassing story frame by frame with a friend. Would he? I don't think so.

So, back to this blog/book. I write, sometimes with what feels like brutal honesty, about my fears, my warped sense of humor, my anger, my parenting mistakes, my job, my crazy thinking, my spirituality, my body and how the MS is affecting it, and all kinds of other stuff that enters my head and makes its way to my fingertips on the keyboard. It's ALL about the details. I dissect the details. I play with them, fondle and fiddle with them, rearrange them, and put them out there for all the world to see.

Thanks for letting me share.