Some time ago, I made the decision to not share any bad news or talk about difficult topics on this website.

I don’t want to worry my family when I’m so far away.
I don’t want to come off as unprofessional or emotional to potential employers who decide to type my name into a search engine.
I don’t want to share so much of myself because what if some weirdo reads all these details of my life and decides to stalk me?

I’ve experienced a range of privacy invasion in my life before. Drawing up boundaries is incredibly important, so I thought I was making it easy on myself when I declared only fluff and chatter for the website.

Rereading entires, I realized yesterday that I’ve been crossing that self-imposed line and touching on some issues that have serious weight in my life.

And you know what? The world hasn’t exploded.

My mother is a regular commenter here and judging by her responses and our skype chats, she worries about me no more or less than she has for the last 30-odd years.
Potential employers are still calling and scheduling interviews. I get the feeling many of the types of jobs I’m going for aren’t the sort of organizations that would even think to google an applicant, but even if they did, what will they see?

I tried it myself for the first time recently. I was nervous to do it. I know that sounds silly, but google name search results are shelved directly next to credit report scores, back taxes owed, and dental maintenance needs. Aka, things I REALLY don’t want to think about.

I ponied up the courage and did it. I looked and was surprised at what that potential employer would see.
This website came first, next I saw my memberships to various social networking websites, photos of me taken at gallery openings, tons of quotes given to street press on various arts and music organizations I used to be involved with, photos nabbed from my flickr account and a Seattle Times article from 1998 that reports on one of my earliest projects and quotes me about third wave feminism with all the passion and ideological fury of adolescence.

At first all that information was a bit shocking. Perhaps I am sharing too much?
Analyzed from a different direction though, my google search results returned this:
I use the social web.
I go to art openings and concerts.
I have a history of involvement in non-profit organizations.
I have a history of volunteering.
My photos are decent enough to steal.
I am articulate enough to be quoted.
I organized a 200-person young feminist convention when I was 19 years old.

These are all things I can be proud of, or at least stand behind. I mean, I’m not PROUD of my facebook profile, but yeah I have one, I’ll cop to it.
The convention I completely forgot I put together? The 31-year-old me is pretty amazed that the 19-year-old me pulled that off.
It was totally a blast too.

Lastly and most notably my Internet footprint reveals that I maintain this website.

I’m in the midst of a difficult transition right now. I very recently got married, moved around the world, and am trying to figure out a whole host things on my mind.
Other than my relationship with the Mister, I’m very far from any sense of home, routine, comfort or security.
Sometimes this process of transition is exhilarating but much of the time it totally sucks.
I do know the magnitude of suck will decrease with time, but in the mean time, I deal with it as best I can.

Maintaining this website has been a buoy for me. Something to keep me busy as I struggle with idle time, a connection to friends and family far away, and a line to new connections, new friends, new projects.

If a potential employer reads this and decides that I’m not the right fit for their job, well that’s fine. Because I wouldn’t have been the right fit even if this website didn’t exist. The self I present here is an honest one.
While it’s true that I don’t tell everything, the parts I do share are genuine and if someone doesn’t like the tone of my writing, they aren’t going to like the matching one that happens every time I speak.

I’ve read many instances of bloggers raving about the amazing people they’ve met via their websites, I always figured that access to this network of awesome people wouldn’t happen until you have a boatload of readers.
Since I don’t make any traffic-growing efforts, I would be cut off from that network. Thankfully I was wrong.
Thank you readers and friends for coming here, for commenting the most on the posts that are the opposite of fluff and chatter, for sending me emails and tweets and passenger pigeons with messages.
Where I’m at right now, your efforts, however minimal they seem to you, are momentous to me and I cannot thank you enough.

In conclusion, the weirdo stalkers are a risk I’m willing to take. Drawing boundaries on what I’m willing to share isn’t a black-and-white thing. As an optimistic extrovert and former complainer, it’s particularly difficult for me to figure out what to do with crappy news and anxiety.
So I’m not going to figure it out. I’m not going to analyze it and write a list or five.
I’m just going to let it be. If I want to talk about something, I’ll trust myself to write it in a way I feel ok with.

The rewards are too great to throw away. Thank you, again.