if I were anonymous

I've struggled with this blogging deal lately {if two or three months can be considered "lately"}

and the best way I can describe my feelings towards blogging is

soured.

There's risk, I know, when one decides to write about her past, about secrets most hold tight to their chests. And there's risk when you share your deep-seated convictions about God or motherhood.


But I surprised myself a few months ago when a well-intentioned email made its way to my inbox in response to one of my posts, winning the prize for being the most {to date} off-based judgment of me, and it hurt. I thought, by now, I was impervious to that kind of pain.

But I'm not.

I'm still very much human.

That wound has put a {pause} between thought and typescript, between what's deep inside and what shows up on screen.

It's made me wonder what I would write about if I were anonymous, without the risk of rejection from

sharing too much,

getting too deep,


taking the stance too controversial,

                    or too narrow-minded.

What would it be like to write without hesitation, without the haunting presence of my invisible audience, hovering over shoulders, whispering and reacting as I click, click, click on the keyboard, and there goes the [backspace]

[and we strike a sentence or post or four]

for fear of being misunderstood, for fear of rejection, for fear of falling flat in this

alternate network or writers, of sojourners, of friends and strangers whose search engines and links and blogrolls find us each at each others cyber-place.

If I were anonymous, 

I would write about my struggles in ministry, about the disillusionment and discouragement my husband I and have to work through.

If I were anonymous,

I would write more about how I wrestle with this becoming the mother,

and the requisite laying down of dreams,

the fear of losing myself to sippy cups forever, and the Resentment I feel sometimes, followed by her bestie, Guilt.

If I were anonymous,

I would write about how I still, how I will always, wrestle with the stuff I have, the life I have, the comfort that is 7,128 miles away from destitution, injustice, rape, and oppression; 7,128 miles away from the mothers who cannot feed their babies in Sudan.

Until I can come up with courage, or the justification, to write about these things that press on my soul, I may not be able to find the middle ground. I've crossed a threshold, one that craves an honest answer and less platitudes, one that demands that what I write is in sync with the state of my soul.

My soul is wrestling right now; my heart has been quieted. 

And so may fall this blog, for a time.

Because the truth is, no one can have both the comfort of community and the license of anonymity. What we write and say and do has impact, both in our daily lives and here, in front of these screens.

So, I must sieve and sort and thresh these forces, this Self-Protection and this Authenticity, as they drive at each other, fighting for the better part of me.

I will find a way to write, with conviction,

just as I am,

to write as if I were anonymous fully knowing I am not.