So I just found my old xanga still online...

And it amazes me that thing's still up there. I have a myspace too. I would shut them both down but I can't remember my passwords.

Xanga seems to chronicle another lifetime for me. Seriously. It's focus was a different age, a completely different mentality and set of people. It was such a social source for me, and for a while held much of private pain and happenings that were going on. So much of the time silly quotes and song lyrics expressed what I was really thinking or feeling...and that was the only place they were expressed. There and no where else. For a while, xanga was very important to me, in many senses of the word.

I've never been wonderful at being completely honest on these online blogs. It terrifies me to think that someone might read something they won't like. That too, is my greatest fear as a writer (and I use that in the broadest sense of the word). Yes it's true. Fearless Rilla is afraid people won't like her.

As much as I've tried to make my way, to be completely honest with myself and others, that still lurks beneath the surface. That doesn't mean I haven't grown into my own, but I still do take into account what others think.

However, instead of making the hidden into something bad, I'm taking a different stance. I don't think it's that terrible to be private about my life anymore. I think it's because I'm married to an incredibly private person, but for whatever reason I don't think it's that bad. I need to socialize still, obviously, but I don't want it to be through aquaintainces on xanga. I guess the people whose opinion I care about has shifted, not the fact that I care.

And that in itself, is a good thing.