The Meaning of Blog

I've been asked by a number of people whom I e-mailed to announce my arrival upon the blog scene, exactly what a blog is. I'm not sure I even know the answer. (Care to step in, Snooze?) I don't even know if there is a correct protocol when writing up blog entries, and if so, whether or not I'm in code violation. (Mine seem to be lengthier than those I've seen, but I guess I'm just a long-winded person).

My best guess was that a blog was sort of an online journal, a place to write down anything and everything, somewhere friends and family could visit so as to feel somehow connected. It's a weird thing the internet though ... we all manage to stay "connected" in a very disassociative way. Talk about erecting (fire)walls.

It's ironic because, for years, I kept a paper journal. It all started when I was a gangly, awkward and bespectacled pre-teen in grade 7. My homeroom and English teacher at the time (the wonderful and inspiring Mrs. Vineberg -- we all should have teachers like that at some point in our lives) made us begin a journal. Each day during class, we were given about ten minutes to scribble in an entry. At first, we all did so reluctantly. She never read our journals, but when it came time to marking us, she would flip through it quickly to make sure we'd actually written something. Being a keener (I had a 99% and 100% for two of my English courses), I would stress out at times when I knew she would be checking my journal, and I would fill it in with nonsense just so that it would look as though I'd done the proper assignment. As the year progressed, I started actually writing in it. I think this was a common experience, because other kids soon began getting very protective over their journals.

After the academic year ended, I kept up with my journal, writing in it fairly often. I found myself turning to it when I needed to work out emotional issues and couldn't confide in others. I poured out my heart and soul into it. (In more recent years, I reread some of the journals I'd kept during my high school years. They were incredibly difficult to get through, not just due to my illegible handwriting, but because it was evident, when reading some of the entries, that I'd been in a lot of pain at the time. I'd felt incredibly depressed and alone for several years).

There were a few instances during my adolescence when I found out that my privacy had been violated by both my mother and my brother. My mother, read my journals on a regular basis, to make sure that I wasn't indulging in a life filled with carefree rampant sex and/or recreational drugs. My brother, read it out of curiosity because my mom had made a huge federal case out of a few things she'd discovered during her trespassing expeditions (not rampant sex or drugs though -- that came later).

Many years later, when I was in university and on the verge of breaking up with what I thought then was the love of my life, he confessed that he'd gone into my desk and read my journals. I guess it was some kind of desperate act in a long line of last ditch efforts to prevent our final breakup.

In all instances, I felt as though I'd been raped, and that a part of me had been irretrievably and irrevocably stolen. My journals contained my innermost thoughts and emotions. I'd never written with the intention of it being available for others' pleasure. Consequently, there was absolutely no censorship on any level contained within the pages.

I stopped writing in a paper journal many years ago. I don't know exactly why. Maybe at some level I was worried that it would fall into the wrong hands? (A friend told me recently that after completing each journal, he destroys it before moving onto the next. I commented that that somehow seemed sacrilegious, but I suppose it depends upon the reason for which one writes).

When I was pregnant with my eldest child, I got it into my head that it would be a nice idea to have a journal for my baby. Something in which I could write about my experiences as a mom and then later pass onto my child once he or she reached adulthood. I now have three journals, one for each child, in which I write so seldom that they may never reach completion. I've somehow felt for years as though I've been suffering from writer's block. (Can you call it writer's block if you're not truly a writer?)

It's ironic that I now keep a journal of sorts, which is accessible to the world at large, so that each entry can be read, judged and commented upon. I have to wonder what this signals. Am I an exhibitionist at heart? Or have I moved on and reached some kind of maturity?