on blogging.

my mother knows that I have a blog - and this fact makes her very uncomfortable - the idea that strangers "anyone!" can read things about me. She constantly asks if I post "personal" things about myself, and though all my thoughts are personal, rarely to I post personal, real-life stories.

In the past week, the authors of three seperate blogs which I frequent (one written by someone I know but don't really talk to anymore and two by people I have never met) have experienced signifcant trauma. One had a miscarriage, one suffered a sexual assult (or possibly a rape), and one a betrayl and the end of a hugely significant relationship (or at least this is what I have gathered from the three, keeping in mind the indirect nature of blogging)

It's the strangest feeling to want to reach out and hug somebody you don't even know, or haven't seen in forever, and yet really it's just a manifestation of the human condition. Especially with regard to the three things which I mentioned, which I would not wish on any woman.

through blogging and the internet we are offered a small window into the lives of those we know and those we don't - and often times we see more, or at least differently, than we would through more traditional windows. I wish everyone I knew kept a blog (and not just so I would have more ways to kill time) but because they provide these unique snapshots of both individual personalities and general humanity. Through both the observation of everyday life, and perhaps more so, through the experience of the moments that will shape a life as they unfold in real time.