I've been exposed.

Several months ago, a blog friend of mine accidentally posted a link to his lingerie blog to his personal Facebook page.

It freaked him out so much, he deleted his entire blog. This was a good blog too. An encyclopedia of lingerie, I used to joke to him. It was one of the most impressive fashion blogs I knew. Several years had been put into it.

My friend had good reason to freak the fuck out. He was an alpha male with an explosive secret. If I remember correctly, only his wife knew about his guilty pleasure: wearing pantyhose underneath his jeans. His friends, his family, and his coworkers finding out about it? That would have ruined his life. I felt bad for him. While I was deeply saddened he was leaving the blogosphere, I understood he really didn't have a choice.

There's nothing like a cold splash of water in your face to wake you up.

Recently, I discovered that somebody I didn't want to find out about my blog found out about it.

Of course, my situation isn't as worrisome as my friend's. In fact, I really don't have a big secret to hide at all.

But my privacy has been compromised. A large group of people I didn't want to know my inner most thoughts now know this blog exists. My soul is exposed.

I have always been comfortable writing about my life on this blog. It's kind of like getting to be naked in public and not worrying about it. That feeling is incredible. It's freedom.

But now that feeling has been snuffed out. My privacy has been violated.

I suppose it's my fault. I started this blog anonymously, but with photos and stories and whatnot, it eventually got more personal. I kept that distance from any identification, however. But I grew careless. I linked it somewhere I really shouldn't have. Silly me.

It's the same mentality that has kept me from completing my memoir. Some of my stories are so intensely personal, so morbidly raw, that I can't bring myself to write them down next to my name. So I leave the book unfinished, sitting immobile in a folder on my laptop. I'm not ready to have everyone in my life exposed to everything in my life.

So, what do I do now? I thought seriously about deleting this blog. But that would be pointless. They've probably already read everything. And why should I delete something I'm proud of?

I've thought about abandoning this blog. My readership has dwindled significantly. I'm not passionate about doing biographies anymore. I already spend a lot of hours working on stories for a newspaper and getting paid shit for it. The thought of putting even more hours into a doomed starlet post, and not get paid anything for it, makes me want to vomit.

But a part of me is so attached to this blog. It's like my child. How can I give it up? I just can't. It makes me so sad to even think about it. Even if it has become a ghost town. Even if I don't post here very often anymore.

I really shouldn't let this group of people, who now know this blog exists, win. I mean, I need to stop giving a fuck what everyone in my life thinks about me. I need to have courage.

Because this is ME.

I shouldn't be ashamed of being human. Of having feelings and experiences and thoughts that aren't pure, perfect.

I'm a romantic. I'm a bitch. I'm a storyteller. I'm hurt. I'm exhausted.

But more importantly,

I'm hope.