self criticism (examining my virtual navel)

I truly love myself. I don't want to be anybody else but me. I am living an incredibly blessed life. This blog, with its positive name, very intentionally reflects that positive aspect of my reality, partially because it helps me to dwell in that space more than I might without the exercise of grounding myself in it by consciously writing about being in it. In a sense, blogging is a form of meditation for me. But as a resuly, I realize that this blog does not reflect my life accurately. Nobody's blog can, of course, so this is an example of my being self critical, I suppose. But an episode of the television show "House" brought the issue of self-censorship to my attention recently. There was a patient who blogged incessantly. She had a large, devoted following and she believed it was dishonest to withhold anything significant in her life from her readers. She went way outside her comfort zone in the name of blogging integrity, sharing things with her readers when she would have much preferred the luxury and comfort of keeping them private.

I do not operate this way, but I have lately wondered if some difficult things I am dealing with in my life belong on my blog or not. I generally do not want to air other people's dirty laundry on my blog, so my interpersonal stuff mainly stays out of this zone, with occasional exceptions. But I do wonder whether I am delivering maximum value to you, the reader, by staying - not at a superficial level, exactly - but closer to the surface than I sometimes might. I had to ask myself, after watching that episode of "House", whether I consciously edit what I share here in order to preserve a certain image of myself in your eyes. Or, would it be strange to share more here than I do in my sidewalk life, where I run into people in the flesh, seem to share so much, am considered extremely open, and yet still, hold so many things back?

For example, I am about to run out to a medical appointment for a condition many women suffer from in silence. I wonder whether I should be sharing my journey here about something I have denied and neglected for years. On the other hand, this is not a medical blog, and not just for women, either. So, that is a quandary I'm facing today as I head off to begin taking care of myself in a new way. I wonder whether to share and then I examine my impulse to hold back. Many questions arise: What is at the root of my fear? What is my purpose in blogging? From what aspect of my blogging do my readers currently derive the greatest value? Why blog if I am creating a fictional character of myself by doing so and at what point does editing (i.e. withholding) part of my truth make my blogging dishonest?

I would welcome your feedback.