"You Put Too Much Out There"

I was talking to my mother last night - she calls every other day to inform me I don't call her often enough - and somehow the topic of social networking came up. My mother doesn't get social networking. She doesn't even get email. I love her dearly, but... one of my brothers got her a cell phone for Christmas a few years ago and she never even made a call from it because the numbers were too small and she didn't know which button to press to put the call through.

Despite not understanding it, she told me that Facebook is "stupid." Now, I was proud of her in a way because she got the name right. Usually she calls it "Facespace" or "Myface" or "Spacebook." That's beside the point. Anyway, I don't know how or why it came up, but she said, "You know, your brother (we'll call him "Joe") says you put way too much out there on your Facebook."

Oh, mother, I thought. You've obviously never read my blog!
Not to mention...Brother Joe puts far worse things on HIS Facebook that would really cheese my mother off if she knew. AGAIN, that's beside the point.

But what is being referred to here is not photos or Youtube videos or anything like that. The problem here is... I put too much EMOTION out there. That's the conniption. We're not what you would call a syrupy-sweet family. We love each other, we tell each other all the time, but we're not particularly sentimental. Trauma and regrets and anything unpleasant are best kept nicely under the rug. That, and my brothers are - SHOCK - men. Men don't do the emotional thing very well.

Maybe I say too much, maybe I don't. What I do know is that being open and "putting a lot out there" is what made me a popular blogger back in the day, and it's what landed me a book deal. It's what allows me to relate to other people's hurts and minister to them.

I yam what I yam and I put it out there and if somebody doesn't like it, they don't have to read it. I yam what I yam. I actually practice a good bit of restraint in my blogging, but when it comes to what makes me, me... I don't hold back.

Everyone OK with that? Anyone got a problem with that? Anyone want to call my mom and tell her what I just said?

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