My old blogging identity – or rather, the one I currently have – is pretty well known. I once won a teen blogging award, back when I was still considered a teen (so like last year). I was nominated again this year but didn’t win. Anyways, a lot of people know who I am and a lot of people enjoy my writing – or so I’m told, I’m honestly not trying to be egotistic here…I’m just trying to explain why I’m hesitate on this whole new blogging identity/deleting my old online self thing. My other blog has been what has kept me sane these past few years, but I find that I’m censoring myself more and more these days.

My family is really not into the whole blogging jig. They get pissed at me any time I publish my intimate thoughts or discuss important matters on my blog. So I’ve stopped, there anyway. I get so tired of making my posts private just to avoid a fight with them when I really just want to post them publicly and get some feed back from unbiased people on the outside – people who can easily step back and give me some input that makes sense, if I want it that is. I also love to share my experiences – the good, the bad, the ugly, the funny…everything. I can’t do that when I’m forever getting ridden for “Jerry Springer like” behavior.

I find that I’m under an insane amount of stress lately. Most would say that it’s no surprise, most would say “well no duh you’re stressed, you just had a baby.” But truthfully? My newborn baby is NOT what’s stressing me out. It’s the fact that my family seems to give me negative input for every little decision I make. I get grief on everything from considering finding our kitten a new home (for a slew of reasons which I won’t get into now) to considering moving up North to getting married to my fiance – Matt, the love of my life and father of our son, Nolan.

Recently this weekend, my privacy was invaded more than once when my mother decided to email my cousin about my Twitter account. She had apparently heard that I was saying “disturbing things” on Twitter and it was bothering her and hurting her and she wanted to know exactly what I was saying, and if there was any way she could see all my updates. At first, I thought it was about how I think her company is a pyramid scheme and how I hate hearing about how I should start “working” there (working is a term I use loosely when you don’t get paid) – because I did say that. Only later did I learn that it was because I mentioned we didn’t have the money to buy newborn diapers.

Apparently, childrens services can take my baby away for this. I could get into serious trouble for that comment. Bull crap. Being a little short on cash doesn’t make me a terrible mom. We have tons of size 1 diapers, and yes…they don’t fit the greatest yet but our one month old son is growing so fast that I really see no need in spending another 40 bucks on diapers that he’ll probably grow out of before using up.

So my mother made a Twitter account and added me, just so she could monitor everything I said. I deleted said twitter account after a day, because I was censoring EVERYTHING I thought she might take offense at – and trust me, that’s a lot of censoring because my mother seems to take offense at a lot of things. She’s even more sensitive than I am, and I’m pretty damn sensitive! I made a new account and am not planning on telling any of my family (save for my cousin) about it because I want my privacy.

When I said that I wanted my privacy out loud to my sister, she told me: “don’t be stupid, you’re publishing things publicly online…you have no right to privacy” which I suppose is true…but what I mean when I say that is “I want to be able to continue expressing my thoughts and feelings without constantly being a thorn of annoyance in this or that family member’s side. My family, God love them, are too curious and nosy for their own good and despite my warnings about how they shouldn’t read my blog if it bothered them, they do. And they continue to gripe about it.

Before it was easier to ignore, but now I’m just damn sick of it. I never meant for them to find my link in the first place. I just wanted my space away from my somewhat over bearing sisters and mother. I’ve always been the “bubble child” – someone they feel they need to protect (and basically tell how to live) and I’m so tired of it.

I’m a mom now myself, I have a son. I have a fiance – soon to be husband – and a life that I want to live without people telling me how I should go about living it. I have dreams that I want to chase without having someone knock them down with “reality” slaps, because really…what’s reality without dreams? Why can’t I reach for the moon? Even if I land amongst the stars, I’ll still have made it somewhere pretty damn exciting.

So I created this blog, this identity, in hopes that I could continue writing my deepest thoughts and documenting our beautiful life without having anyone give me trouble for it. Maybe one day when they accept what my blog means to me will I share it with them, but for now…I want it all to myself. And anyone out there who is still reading of course.

The bottom line? I want these words to be for me, my son, my fiance and anyone else who wants to hop along for the ride. I want to document my life as a young mother, wannabe Social Worker student, pretend author and just a regular old person trying to figure out who they really are. I want to keep writing as honestly as possible.

But I don’t know if I’m going to go through with this idea to delete my old online self and start fresh – in name only. Time will tell, and thankfully I’ve got lots of it.