Ironically, even though I’m a writer and written words ARE my reality, I’ve always had difficulty blogging.
It’s a little bit of “Do people really need to know my thoughts right now?” vs. “What if I write something immeasurably stupid, and I want to go back and edit it? When you’re typing in cyberspace, you’re writing in ink, not pencil.”
Despite my qualms about blogging, I’ve been making an effort to start putting myself out there more. And by “out there,” I mean on the internet, with my real name, not hiding behind a pseudonym or warrior-like avatar that allows me to engage in alternate egos, consequence-free. 
I’ve been playing this “real self” game on Twitter, Facebook, my website, my blogs, and lo and behold – the world isn’t ending like I thought it would.
To inspire myself, I’ve also been gravitating towards people who have nothing to hide. They’re out there, being themselves, and enjoying it. To my amazement, no mafia members are hunting them down or killing them as a result of this brazen straightforwardness. Quite the opposite – mafia members stay away far from them. (Can you tell I’ve been paralyzed by a secret fear of being tracked down and dealt with by fictional bad guys?)
In emulating my role models, I find that gradually, over time, ‘being myself’ is becoming easier. The desire to hide is melting away. Thank God, too, cuz it takes up too much time, energy, and effort trying to be something I’m not. (Metaphor time! Wanting to hide is the equivalent of driving in a gas-guzzling SUV, wasting all my fuel. I’d rather start being my authentic self, which is the equivalent of riding in a plug-in hybrid vehicle that averages at least 100 miles a gallon. Hehe).
Now I care less about who knows me, or whether they know about the work I do, or whether they have an inkling of my non-work-related preferences. That includes ex-boyfriends, ex-clients, ex-friends, ex-patriots, ex-whoevers. It’s just too much effort to try to hide all of it any longer. “Go ahead, Google me, find everything you you want on me – I’m busy caring about something more important” is my new motto.
Why am I so cautious? For one, I used to hang out with some real ‘black widow’ types of people, where if you encroached upon the secret reality of who they were, they’d be sure to bite you, or sting you, or prepare for some kind of revenge. Not one to be steeped in common sense all the time, I often engaged in a bit of warfare with these black widow types, simply for the fun of it (because I am a little nuts like that). That would have been OK, had the black widows understood it was all in the spirit of play. But I’ve learned there are people out there for whom playful warfare is grounds for actual revenge.
Trolling those people is a thing of the past. I’ll just let them do their thing, and I’ll stay out of it.
And while the ‘sick gene’ will always be in me, I’m going to take ongoing healthy steps to keep it turned off. I don’t want want that bad boy expressing itself at random hours of the day!
Bottom line: I’m done being unintentionally sick. And I’m done using the act of hiding as a way to fuel this unintended sickness. If I’m going to be sick, I’m going to do it intentionally, on my terms.
