Miraz
Miraz

@Cheri I hope we don't lose you from here… "Companion or detriment?" Maybe it's both, at the same time, sometimes more companion, sometimes more detriment.

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ericmwalk
ericmwalk

@Cheri do you think if you made your site more of a "Digital Garden" that you would lose your online buddies? I like that concept of a Digital Garden and feel like that is more of what I do these days. Well maybe a Digital Dumping Ground as mine is almost more journal in nature now that I think about it. 😄

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hjertnes
hjertnes

@Cheri what if that asshole between you and the keyboard hates it???!

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skoobz
skoobz

@Cheri See you on the toot site. I write knowing my mom is my audience, therefore knowing if I post something personal, I’m going to get annoying questions about it. So, my page floats more towards a digital garden, where I outline my interests and not much else.

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KimberlyHirsh
KimberlyHirsh

@Cheri I appreciate you thinking out loud!

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pratik
pratik

@Cheri We hope you don't leave us. I know I will miss your posts. But understand you doing what's best for you. How about getting around letting anyone see details of your life by posting under a pseudonym? Online friends whom you get to know better over time can know your real name but not, if you prefer not to. I mean, that's how blogging worked until Facebook forced us all to enter our real names.

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bradenslen
bradenslen

@Cheri I get it. I'd hate to lose you, but I also know you have to do what's best for you. Maybe just take a break from blogging for awhile. There's no official bloggy rules so you can take a break for months until you just have to blurt something out.

My problem with blogging is when I make it a chore. Oh, I should blog something just because I expect myself to do so. Like during the early pandemic lockdown - I was too busy doomscrolling. :)

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fabio
fabio

@Cheri I really really like your sentiments here, @Cheri! While reading I had a thought: how about you privately write all you want, then select a couple paragraphs and only post those for the world wide web?

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fgtech
fgtech

@Cheri I’m relieved to see I am not the only one here with these sorts of hesitations. My blog face is just so boring. We don’t share photos of our kids online in public. I live in a small town, so posting things that are too personal is an invitation for gossip. What to do?

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odd
odd

@Cheri I always look forward to reading your posts here on Micro.Blog, and I think you post personal, but not necessarily private things. Your posts is just like most of the web ought to be in my mind. Cheerful and unpretentious. And I somehow always end up knowing a thing or two about miscellany. I hope you’ll stay here, but I also see your conundrum. Can it be Cheri Baker, the author, vs. Cheri Baker the individual that is not finding a common cause? You could always have two blogs again! 😃 Hope I’ll be able to read your non-worky things still.

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annahavron
annahavron

@Cheri I would really miss reading your blog, so selfishly I hope you keep writing there; however, I feel slightly to more-than-slightly ill every time I post anything. Vulnerability hangover -- so the condition has a name!

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Ddanielson
Ddanielson

@Cheri I can certainly see the conundrum here, Cheri. I feel like it’s the very fact you put your personality and life into your writing that makes your entries so authentic and relatable. It is certainly crazy making to seek an editor in your head to parse the “too personal” from the story of the moment. I don’t know the answer! I’ll read whatever you’re comfortable with sharing. Thanks for your thoughts on this dilemma.

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Cheri
Cheri

@Miraz You're right!

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Cheri
Cheri

@hjertnes Drown that guy in the toilet. It's the only way to be sure. 😂

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Cheri
Cheri

@ericmwalk @pratik @bradenslen @odd @fabio @pilchuck I have no desire to leave micro.blog (I love it here!) so I imagine I can adapt any new internet habits to still have a presence here. Something to think about, for sure.

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Cheri
Cheri

@skoobz My mom reads my blog too. I call her to talk and she interrupts me. "Yeah, I read that on your blog." 😄

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Cheri
Cheri

@KimberlyHirsh @fgtech @annahavron Thanks! And I'm glad it's not just me feeling these things. (I figure it must be at least a somewhat common issue...)

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jayeless
jayeless

@Cheri I get how you're feeling, although I also enjoy your blog posts and would miss them if they stopped 🙂 I think it's definitely something everyone has to weigh up – where do you draw the line as to what's "too private" and therefore not publishable? Sometimes I feel the inverse applies too, where I'd happily vent about something to people online, but not if people I know IRL might see! Hopefully you'll figure something out that works for you 🙂

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hjertnes
hjertnes

@Cheri tired to drown him in beer in my 20s. Didn't work 🤣

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terrygrier
terrygrier

@Cheri your writing has matter so much to me. It caused me to reflect and make changes for the better.

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KimberlyHirsh
KimberlyHirsh

@Cheri I have started writing in Google Keep or Google Docs when I'm not sure if something is too personal to post. Then it's out of me, and I take a couple of days to let it sit, and either come back to it and see if I want to share it, or completely forget I wrote it.

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pcora
pcora

@Cheri sometimes I have the same issue. And that is probably why I turned into posting more photos instead of text (that and the fact that I am not very creative in writing). I try not to share private things as it just feels weird. For some reason, I am more comfortable sharing with the community here, but I get this feeling that it would be weird if my colleagues or a neighbor discover my blog. I hope you continue around and I really enjoy your posts.😊

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Dino
Dino

@Cheri awesome post. Awesome because I've had the same issues and was glad to know the term for it, vulnerability hangover. Thanks for that.

Like I said I had same issue with my personal journal. It was semi-anonymous before, where it only had my name on it and nothing else. So people cannot really tell who it was unless I explicitly told them it was my site. That allowed me to write personal posts and not worry about sharing it online. But then I decided to slap my custom domain name on it, which had my full name and I regretted it after a few months. To this day, I wish I left it as a semi-anonymous blog/journal. If you wanted to keep writing the same way, maybe follow pratik's advice and do so via pseudonym.

Lastly, on digital gardens and blogs. This might not be a popular opinion, but I don't think they're even the same thing. I have my own digital garden, I've looked at other people's digital gardens. I have never once bookmarked, or tried to follow someone else's digital garden. Their blogs yes, but not their digital gardens. To me, a digital garden houses your thoughts and ideas, the goal being to generate new ideas. The blog is where these new ideas show up. So I don't see a digital garden being able to replace a blog.

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Cheri
Cheri

@terrygrier ☺️

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Cheri
Cheri

@KimberlyHirsh That’s great advice! Thanks.

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ridwan
ridwan

@Cheri Thanks for sharing Cheri. I'm struggling with this exact thing. I suppose balancing between personal and not-so-personal posts is quite hard. At some point, I end up not writing/posting at all. You just do not know how much to share and not share!

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amit
amit

@Cheri Will miss your posts but I do understand if you do stop posting them. Hope you find an option that let's you keep the blog alive :)

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manton
manton

@Cheri Of course I hope you keep blogging, because I love reading your posts. 🙂 But I get needing to reflect on how much to share from time to time. I do the same, sometimes getting into a routine of writing a lot and sometimes going more quiet, knowing my blog is always there whenever I'm ready.

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