i remember every sound it made

I've been thinking recently about audience.  I have been discovering more and more that there are actually people out there that read this.  Who enjoy this.  And while that may very well be the most fulfilling notion of my entire life so far -- that people are reading my thoughts and experiences and being prompted to think about their own -- it's still a little disturbing to have to realize (and reconcile) the fact that this is a blog.  With my name attached to it.  That anyone -- anyone! -- can stumble upon.

I'm honestly not so worried about strangers reading this (it's not like I put anything deeply personal on here that could seriously compromise my safety) as much as I am about people that I know.  I wouldn't by any means prefer for a bunch of faceless strangers to read my writing than for people I love and care about to do so, because showing my thoughts to people I know may enrich their understanding of me as a person.  But at the same time, it's disconcerting to think that this understanding of me could actually be warped by what I write.  Or, even worse, they could feel personally attacked or offended by my thoughts.

Though I have learned to not blog when I am very angry at a specific person, especially if my anger cannot be harnessed in a positive, introspective way, and though I have learned that having an audience is one thing that keeps me writing again and again, I still find myself disconcerted by the thought of my mother reading even the briefest mention of the awkward New Year's experience I had (too complicated to explain to anybody, let alone a parent), or the occasional profane word that slips out through my natural voice.  I find myself disconcerted by the thought of my friend's mother reading even a subtle detail of my tone that undermines her opinion of me.  Or my swim coach stumbling upon a post that expresses my frustration with the sport.  My English teacher even came across my blog and read a post in which I specifically referred to a paper that I wrote in her class.  Not that I would have done this, because that was neither the point of the entry nor how I actually feel, but I could have easily written something denouncing the assignment or even the class in general. I could have easily -- even subconsciously -- carried in my tone a morsel of condescension or contempt.

If I had other things to say, I could have been a scandal rather than a girl whose unique endeavor to keep a blog is commendable.  If I had let the power of writing publicly get to my head, I could have been the bitchy girl who trash-talks an authority figure or friend on a public online journal.  It scares me to think that I do  have power within these words.  I do have the power to make people think and reflect and I have the power to show people who I am.  But I also have the power to inadvertently wound, whether it be others or their opinions of me.

I guess I've just been thinking lately about the elements of myself that I cannot control on a blog with the same intricacy that I do to each person I meet.  If my mom stumbles upon my blog, she is reading the same words that a high schooler would, even if these are words that I am so accustomed to being able to manipulate in person in order to be the person she expects me to be.  While taking my audience into account helps me to think about things I have to say that might have a widespread appeal, there is also an element of blog-keeping that doesn't allow me to take into account very specific audiences that have an opinion of me that I'd like to maintain, like parents or teachers or coaches.

So this is a disturbing concept, not being able to have complete control of what I share with people on an intricate, individual level, but perhaps it also urges me to think about the impression I give on a more general level.  Perhaps it allows me to think about -- and become comfortable with -- the person I am willing to show anybody, the person I am proud to be, regardless of which audience I am speaking to.

Perhaps, in a way, this is helping to free me from the confines of the various versions of myself that exist.