Back when I was about 14, and really into the blogging world, I would share information about myself that the 26 year old me thinks is absolutely insane. I was your typical egotistical teenager, and blogging (and webcamming) made that an even easier road to travel down. When I decided to try homeschooling because public school left me feeling unchallenged, disheartened, and confused about who I was - I became even more involved in the online world, expanding a social network that I'm humbled to say still befriends me today (Hi, guys & girls! :D) They became my confidants, and though I still had "real friends", I found I had less in common with them and their views of the world and more in common with these very real but distant friends I started making.

I don't need to tell you (other than to start this paragraph) that blogging and social networking have exploded in the past 12 years. With that explosion, privacy is no longer the norm:

"People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time." -Mark Zuckerberg

As we share more information with each other, we form stronger bonds, now not only with "online friends", but with real life friends that we feel have finally caught up to this world that we've known about perhaps a little longer than they have. We tell people what we're eating, drinking, what time we're going to sleep, what store we're going to shop in that day, how much money we just spent on a new car, what we're planning on doing that week, where we're going on vacation - and not only do we tell people this, but we show them 100's of pictures and videos to help them visualize our life. Our life that they may no longer see in person because we're all inside, on our computers, updating each other about it.

I've even found that because I share so much online (especially about Everly on Facebook) that it doesn't make me feel the urge to go and physically see friends and family as much any more... because I feel like they already "know everything".

The past few weeks, however, I have taken a different approach. I have been much more quiet about our personal happenings. Sure, I'm still updating, but I haven't gone into detail about our current house hunt, I haven't gone into detail about my pregnancy, I haven't gone into detail about the new job I might be getting that's perfect for me, and I haven't gone into detail about the gender of the baby - which is aggravating quite a few of you. ;)

And it is really strange what has happened. Because I'm not putting it all out there, I've actually hurt some feelings. People feel abandoned... left out of the loop... not realizing everyone is out of the loop, not just them. I've had a handful of friends express that they feel ignored, mistreated, or confused because they don't know what I'm doing or the extent to which I'm doing it. Though I've watched them carry on with their online lives, I see that there is a gap... that they miss me... that information that I blindly put out there was really information that they relied on to feel connected to me, since we're apart from each other physically.

This self-centered realization doesn't just apply to me, however. It applies to all of us. After I got back from vacation, I excitedly checked social feeds to "catch up" with people... people I could easily call and talk to, or go to lunch with. I was interested in what had happened in their lives - what articles they were reading or what their babies were doing. I missed them... I missed that connection.

And so while I may not divulge every, little detail of my life (as none of us should feel obligated to), I do want to respect the unique situation I'm in which is that many of the people I care about aren't close enough to visit often. Many of the people who care about me are trying so hard to reach out and I'm shutting them down. That's not fair to make them feel like that, and I don't want to lose anyone in the process. While my life belongs to me, I also feel like it's only fair I share pieces of it with friends and family so they remember that I love them and that they're a part of me, too. And if I'm not going to make the effort to do that in person, I need to at least do it online.

So yeah...  Momfish isn't really geared toward being an all-encompassing, personal blog. But I wanted to put this out there... I wanted to put something open out there... because it has been a while since I've done that.