Existing.

I didn’t delete blog posts until recently. In fact, I’ve only done it once. Most of the time I am quite comfortable with writing something very personal and posting it on the Internet. If it’s something I’d be happy telling a person I’ve just met I know that I’ll be happy sharing it with whoever cares. But there is a line, it’s a deeply personal line in my head, and I know that I’ve crossed it when I keep cringing as if I’ve told someone an embarrassing secret. Not just someone, anyone with a WiFi connection. 

I think a lot about whether I share too much on my blog. I pride myself on always being my authentic self but I sometimes wonder if by constantly publicly writing about it I lose a bit of it to a virtual space. Or to people who aren’t listening. Because I am wanting people to listen.

Does it matter who you are saying something to or is it just the fact that you are saying it at all that counts? 

I guess it all just comes down to existing. To wanting to prove that you existed as much as you can. To leave footprints with words and feelings on the people you encounter, and expanding it out to people you never will. Do those people really care? Will they really remember? 

I think of people I look up to whom I will never meet because they are too famous or too famous and dead and I think of the impact they have made on me. I have pictures of Audrey Hepburn all over my room, and I declared an undying love for Regina Spektor at the age of 12 which is yet to die out. And they have shaped me, in small ways, and they have influenced how I think or behave or look. I was never alive at the same time as Audrey Hepburn but whatever she left behind still reached me, I still benefit from what she did with her life. 

I think about books I’ve read when I’ve felt scared or sad or lonely, or films that have helped me escape, or music I’ve felt inspired by and I realise that even if I never meet or know the person or people behind those things they still reached me. They still made an impact. They still made me feel less alone, less fearful, less weird. 

If I can do that on a much smaller scale, help someone, make someone think, then I know that my oversharing is worth it. I know that my being completely honest and open is good for me and maybe for someone else. And maybe I won’t just fade, and someone will know that I existed.