Cleaning House

It’s probably a fool’s task to write a post that won’t be read by its intended audience or, even if it is, will be willfully misunderstood because it won’t agree with preconceptions about who’s who and what’s what. But I’m a writer for a reason. Writing is my chosen way to communicate. It’s my way of working through my thoughts and ideas. Writing is the place where I feel the most comfortable—the most at home. As I said in an earlier post, this is my time of year to reflect and clean the house named Becky.

LiveJournal has been, for over three years, a room in my home. If you’ve read me for any length of time, you understand that my actual, physical home—what we call The Compound—is my sanctuary. It’s not only where I live and celebrate living with my family and my friends, it’s also where I work. It’s important to me to keep it in order, to keep it peaceful, clear of negativity, strife, and turmoil.

I can’t always do that. Life is messy; I understand this. To some degree, I embrace life’s messes, accidents, sudden turnabouts, because I want to learn from them, to blend them into who I am and how I view the world, and of course, if for no other reason that makes sense to me, because those things can be quite useful in fiction. Other writers understand this: You can never turn it off. Whatever’s happening in front of you—horrible or wonderful—there’s a little voice in your head that says, How can I use this?

Oddly, I see that as a blessing. It provides a place for detachment, for pulling back and seeing a bigger picture, for not being overwhelmed by the moment. However, I’m not a writing machine. I’m human and just as susceptible to shock, cruelty, discord, and unkindness as any other human being.

As I said, I consider LiveJournal a room in my home. I started it on a whim because Timothy had a LiveJournal, and I very much enjoyed his interaction with a few people on here. (Hi, Jandy! Hi, Rio! Hi, Garry!) At the time, we were maintaining several web sites related to our various writing pseudonyms, and it began to be obvious to me that LiveJournal was a more effective means of publicity, hateful word though it is. Any creative person with something to sell has to find a means to advertise and sell it.

So Timothy designed, for me, a LJ page that would feature our books (see sidebar at right), provide tags so that I or anyone could easily find old posts on the same topics, and would be easy for me to maintain. He taught me how to use HTML code to include photos, because he understands how much I love pictures, and he taught me how to do new banners whenever I wanted, because I get bored with seeing the same old thing at the top of my page. Then he patted me on my head and left me in my new playroom.

Which is when I remembered something from my childhood: I don’t LIKE to play with others! They tear up my toys, lose things, steal things, tell on me if I don’t play their way when they’re the guests. Plus, I had no idea who might show up in this room. I had no intention of seeking out anyone. I didn’t go on a “friending” mission. But anyone who was looking for information on TJB or Cochrane Lambert could find me. Or anyone whose LJ or blog I was commenting on, because I was just then discovering the entire blogosphere and finding it fascinating. What if strangers showed up and started acting like the brats of childhood? They might argue and bicker and get too loud and insult me or hurt my feelings or say things ON MY JOURNAL that I didn’t agree with or approve of and—

Then I talked myself down. First of all, I’m not a child anymore. (Thanks, Stevie.) And this was just ONE ROOM. It wasn’t my entire house, where no one comes unless invited. It was ONE ROOM where I have a certain degree of control. It was ONE ROOM where, though I would be scrupulously honest, I could give as much or as little of my self to anyone as I wished.

So here’s what I did. I picked an ADULT age to be: thirty-five. Thirty-five was a good year for me. People I loved very much weren’t sick or dead then. I was smarter than the idiot I’d been in my twenties. I wasn’t so old that I’d always be compelled to dole out advice (a common trait of Aries).

That was another thing. I’d make sure people knew I was an Aries, because I have the worst and best traits of my sign. (Oh, I can admit it. We Aries think our worst traits are pretty fucking awesome.) People could know they were interacting with someone who was opinionated and had no patience for fools, yet could be fun, fiercely loyal, and creative.

At the same time, I’d make sure that anyone who stumbled into my room knew I didn’t REALLY believe that I’m thirty-five. I’d make jokes about it, and about my Aries traits. You see, I do have a BIG sense of humor, and I can laugh at myself long before anyone else laughs, and it’s a sincere laugh. Sometimes I truly am all those cartoon voices I hear in my head that I willingly acknowledge—Marge Simpson, Beavis, Jane Lane, and Lucy Van Pelt.

So I opened the door to my room, and people began to come. Readers. “Real life” friends. People who met me online through Timothy. People from my past. People from my old chat room and message boards. They didn’t always comment. In fact, most of them don’t comment. They tell me when they see me that they read me, or they e-mail me or call to discuss things I talk about here. As I said to someone recently, one of my dearest friends once said, “I read it, and it’s you, but it’s not the you I know.”

And she’s right. Very little of my private life, certainly the private lives of my family and friends, gets published on my LiveJournal. I have always been, since infancy, a private person. I don’t mean secretive. I have nothing to hide, no great mysteries that must not be revealed. I mean that it was never my intention to turn this LiveJournal into any kind of confessional, or a forum for venting about the people who try my soul, or a place to expose my own and others’ personal lives to the world.

That is not a judgment of what anyone else does with their blog or LJ. It’s just a truth about who I am. I’m private.

Here’s where I’m addressing particular individuals (note: that means more than one of you; not everything said applies to everyone addressed, but I don’t intend to be too specific, because even now, I’ll protect your privacy—the irony of that will become apparent). I’m doing this publicly because I don’t want the events of the last few months to happen to me again if I can prevent them. I can refer future violators here. And I’ve found that e-mailing you and talking to you sincerely and from the heart got turned into lies. So you wanted it real? It’s real and right here, for anyone to read, because I have nothing to hide and nothing to lie about.

You don’t need to know EVERYTHING about me. My personal life is none of your business unless I choose to make it so.

And you have no right to dig around in my past and make public things I haven’t made public. I don’t do that to you or to anyone.

I respect your boundaries. You obviously have them, because you LOCK YOUR JOURNALS. You don’t want the entire world to have access to what you say on them. I do NOT lock my journal because the reason I created it was to help readers find the books I’ve written or helped write. It would be pretty silly to make that information inaccessible, wouldn’t it? And I love the comment feature of LJ, which is why I chose it over other blog providers. People are so smart and funny, so kind and interesting, and I like the way they can interact and take off in new directions in my comments.

Furthermore, not that it’s any of your business, but people in my life keep up with other people in my life via my LiveJournal. On those infrequent occasions when I publish information about my family and friends, it’s because I know that information is welcomed by certain of my readers. You have NO IDEA who reads my LJ, but I DO. I write to and for them, as well as some AWESOME people who’ve come into my life thanks to LiveJournal.

As time passed, another reason why I chose not to share private details of my life with you is because I saw how frequently you shared private information about other people. People you’ve worked with, people from your past, your family members, your friends. You gave names and locations and dates and phone numbers. You talked about their problems and the things that you didn’t like about them or the ways you felt they hurt you. I choose what I want to share publicly, and I saw that you have little regard for discretion or privacy. I would be horrified if I told you something and saw it repeated publicly.

In the most innocent and inadvertent ways, things you said in person or e-mail or on the phone with other people began to be repeated to me—not maliciously, but only because people thought you “knew things.” They thought they were dealing with facts. But these things were inaccurate. Sometimes they were downright lies. Some were about me; some were about other people in my life. All this dismayed me and made me feel betrayed and protective of myself and my friends. Yet I did nothing. I didn’t attack you. I didn’t banish you from my life or my LJ. I hoped that when we saw each other again, face to face, I could talk these things over with you.

Meanwhile, another common occurrence of the blogging world was taking place, when my commenters and LJ friends were being approached: “Can I friend you?” “Sure! Any friend of Becky’s is okay with me!” Then some of these people would be taken aback when you were overly familiar with them or made inappropriate comments. They were sometimes startled by things you divulged or ways you behaved and how all that revealed a character that they might not have willingly invited into their lives had they met you in any other way.

It shows their class and their maturity that never one time did any of them say, “God, Becky, why did you bring this into my life?” They understand that I never meant for my room to become a place where people would meet them only to eventually insult them, demean them, hurl snarky or rude comments at them, and even sometimes alarm them.

Again, I never attacked you. I didn’t make a big production of it. If I felt something absolutely had to be addressed, I did it privately and never in a hurtful, hateful way. We are all, after all, adults here. I thought that in the long run, a little patience, a little compassion, a little effort at understanding and explaining, would enable decorum and dignity to prevail.

Over the past month, and certainly this past weekend, you proved me wrong. I don’t see how you can possibly be proud or feel good about the drama and upheaval you’ve created. Some people have been genuinely hurt. Some people have been pushed to strike back. Some people are just relieved that you’ve burned bridges. They are ready to move on.

And so am I. I thought long and hard about closing down this room of my house. Then I remembered the e-mails I get from readers who’ve found me here. I think of how much I love sharing some of my life’s wonderful events, people, and dogs with others I care about.

I always said I’d stop doing this when it stopped being fun. You sure managed to take the fun away for a while. And you did it, cruelly, at a time when my energy needs to be focused elsewhere, not on this kind of useless, distracting drama.

But ultimately, the only power you have to make my daily life unpleasant or uncomfortable is the power I give you. I don’t choose to do that. I wish you well. I wish you peace. I wish you good lives with those who care about you. I’m glad you were part of my life for a while. There was—there IS—much I admire and respect about you. I would never in a million years have wanted to damage you in any way.

Though you weren’t courteous enough to give me an honest goodbye, I am my parents’ daughter, and so I say to you with sincerity, goodbye and all the best.

I now return this room to its regular use of dogs, photos, joy, and joyness. Thank you to all of you who keep it a place I love to be—and could someone PLEASE vacuum up that dog hair? Thanks.