Silent

I've become afraid of blogging.  Yes, I have all sorts of ideas in my head, but the notion of somehow offending someone, somewhere has started to overwhelm me.  I think it began a few years ago when I suggested to my sisters-n-law about a post about the "Market Basket Deli Rant."  In my mind the post was rather funny - people who go up and order five pounds of items, getting a sample for each one, contemplating the thickness of each slice.  ARGH!  All this at seven a.m.  My sisters-in-law slammed my snobbery, prodding me to contemplate who did I think I was with my mere order of a 2/3 pound of turkey and 2/3 pound of honey baked ham, no samples, no special instructions.  Other people had begged me to do the "Market Basket Deli Rant," but the piece fell to the wayside.  I was too afraid of the backlash.  I didn't want to express my opinions.

I think this is what it's come to with my writing.  I'm downright scared of pissing someone off that I just don't write.  Some pieces seem too personal.  Some pieces I start seem too generic.  I could always blog about the cats, I suppose.  But then someone, somewhere will claim I'm nothing but a cat lady, sitting in my house with the felines all day.  I guess I care too much about my audience when writing.  Perhaps that's really sad.  I used to thoroughly enjoy posting here, but now I'm downright scared.

I'm losing my voice.

I may start up a blog somewhere on the internet without my name, without links to Facebook (like I was doing), so I can write freely.  If people find me, so be it.  But in the land of the worldwide web, it will be hard to do.  Then I can write freely, and have an audience slam me at will - people who don't know me.  I miss writing.  But I don't know if this blog is the tool I want to use to express myself any longer.

I guess that's the danger in writing - one's always going to have an adversary somewhere.  Maybe I just need to learn to live with the critics.