If I Had an Anonymous Blog

Today's blog dare prompt is this, what would post about if your blog was anonymous? Would it be the same as your current blog? Could you let loose and and write more about what it on your mind?

Well since my blog is anonymous this is an easy one for me to answer. I blog anonymously specifically so that I can be as honest as I want to be. In real life I'm the kind of person who loves to share the positive things and tends to keep the negative things to myself. I've never been a complainer, I've never been the kind of person who needs other people to lean on in times of trouble. I deal with most of the negative things in private, with my husband. I keep my happy public face on at all times. I hate to cry in front of other people (except my husband of course) and I don't usually reach out and ask others for help.

But losing my son is simply too much for me to bear. I can't just do it myself. I can't deal with it alone. It bursts out of me when I least expect it. I cry in public now, I cry in front of friends and strangers. But I hate it. For some reason, I still feel the need to put on a good public face. It's exhausting most of the time but I just can't turn into someone I'm not. I'm not brave enough to share my real grief with the people I know and love. I know that sounds crazy, but I just need them to think I'm strong. I can't allow myself to let them see how sad and vulnerable I really am. I don't know why I'm like this, but I am and I've come to accept it.

So I blog without telling my name. Here I can let it all out without worrying that people in my real life will think I'm losing my mind. Here I can talk about the people in my life who have let me down. Here I can express my grief in a way that I just can't do anywhere else. I know it's the Internet and I'm releasing my innermost feelings in a very public way, but somehow it feels safe.

Safer than trying to express these feelings with my friends. It's not that they won't listen or care, but sometimes it's just too hard to see the looks of horror on their faces. Watching them absorb my story, the story that is probably their greatest fear, the fear of losing a child. Watching that look reminds me that my new normal is still completely alien to them. They don't live in the world of dead babies. The world where you pick up ashes and have blessings at a church. The world where you have to deal with an empty room that should have been a nursery. The world where nothing is safe anymore.

But here, I have found many people who walk this path alongside me. It's an awful path, but it's ours and we're doing our best to try and navigate through it.

So that's why I blog anonymously. I get to have a safe place where I can work through my loss, and I still get to have some semblance of my old normal life. I really think I need both to stay sane.

Phew, that felt a lot like a therapy session. : )