I graduated from college a little over two weeks ago.
In the days leading up to my college graduation, I wrote a personal essay for Bustle. It was published on a Thursday, two weeks after writing it. The topic of my essay was Graduating College Without My Mother and Grandmother; The Women Who Made Me.
I poured a lot of myself into that essay. It is undoubtedly the most vulnerable I’ve made myself in my writing and this led to a few realizations. I call this my level of sharing:
1. Having the piece published – level of comfort: 10 (on a scale of 1-10)
If you decide to read the piece, you’ll see that this is a piece of my heart. It’s a version of who I am that I’ve never let anyone see. At least not so blatantly. Having Bustle publish it was very, very scary, but I saw it as basically anonymous. Any Bustle reader who clicked on the article would only know me by my name; they wouldn’t know me personally. I found SO much comfort in this.
The article was published early morning and I sat on it for a few hours before deciding what to do next.
2. Sharing it on my Facebook – level of comfort: 5-7
Before I posted the article on any form of social media I gchatted it to my friends and emailed it to my brother. These were my baby steps. I was anxious with what they would think of it and how I would feel about their reactions. I was more uncomfortable with their praise than I care to admit. I didn’t know how to respond to it or how to frame the entire situation. This leads in perfectly to how I felt about posting it on Facebook.
I didn’t post the article until a good 12 hours after it went live. I was scared sh*tless. I tried to play down the article by including the link in a picture. Hidden beneath a bunch of text. Was this an effort to shield myself? Probably. I was uncomfortable posting the article. After a couple of minutes, I was uncomfortable with all the positive response it got. It didn’t necessarily feel wrong, it just felt….so intimate.
3. Having others share it on theirs – 0-3
One of my closest friends shared it on her Facebook accounts. I was okay with this. She and I had mutual friends, who would see it when I posted my own status, and those who weren’t my friends (read:strangers), well, to them I was just a byline.
When a family member asked to post it, I couldn’t say yes. I battled so much just to post it on my own social accounts, that the idea of others who knew me, but I had decided not to be FB friends with, reading it was too overwhelming.
My logic on sharing may not be very logical, but it’s both (1) challenging my level of comfort in a healthy way (2) within my comfort zone. It’s my equilibrium.
Do you have lines you don’t cross when sharing online? Especially when it’s related to a loved one who has died?
Photo found here
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