The Bitch vs. The Angel

I am missing blogging. Someone described blogging to me once (when I hadn't yet admitted to her that I blogged) as a sort of "verbal masturbation." I'm sorry, Mom. And I agreed. It is. Blogs are full of "I thinks" and "me" and stories that attempt to show what a smart writer, cute storyteller, and interesting person the blogger is. But blogging is fun, it's compelling sometimes, and it's a wonderful release to be able to put something down on paper that has been swirling around in the brain. When you tell someone your thoughts, it feels better. In the old fashioned method of calling a friend up and talking about your thoughts, or sitting in a cafe somewhere to chit-chat, you're also tailoring your stories to that one person. If you're like most people, you change slightly depending on who you're talking to. You don't tell dirty jokes to your grandma, you don't talk baby talk with your coworkers, and you soften and lighten your verbage on political views with someone you know does not share your opinions. This last example you might disagree with.

With a blog, you can more easily be yourself. And for this reason, it's sometimes an even greater release of tension to be able to put onto paper in a somewhat coherent manner one's feelings, opinions, and happenings in life. It's like telling a friend, but that friend is the combination of all friends and relatives in the audience. You can't possibly tailor your speaking points in a blog. You have no choice but to be yourself. And for a woman who is accustomed to trying to please many people, it's nice to be able to be yourself. It's nice to practice how that feels, because maybe, just maybe, we should try that a little bit more in real life too.

When I was reading the Betty Friedan book last year, "The Feminine Mystique," the book that essentially got the ball rolling on the women's movement, I remember reading a quote from her ex-husband as he talked about Betty's personality and how it helped lead to the downfall of the marriage: "She changed the course of history almost singlehandedly. It took a driven, super aggressive, egocentric, almost lunatic dynamo to rock the world the way she did. Unfortunately, she was that same person at home, where that kind of conduct doesn't work. She simply never understood this." I feel that if we behave like the woman who speaks her mind and doesn't sugar-coat our words, our home life and social life suffers. As the eloquent Tina Fey put it in an SNL skit when talking about Hillary Clinton, "Yeah, she's a bitch...but bitches get stuff done."

Sometimes when blogging, our own questions can be answered for us. Like this: we love to categorize in black and white, yes and no terms when the world is full of grey maybes. Do we have to be either Bitch or Angel, or can we be a very direct but very sympathetic friend?

There. I feel better already. What a release!