privacy

Frequent readers of this blog may have noticed that it was private for a few days.  Here's why.  It turns out that someone at my old firm circulated a link to this blog to a bunch of partners.  Which meant that they were reading it.  I always knew, when I decided to start a blog, that it was public.  I knew I had to be prepared for my worst enemy to read it.   But I kind of always figured that no one would be cruel enough to pass the blog along to the partnership at the old firm, and that even if they did, the partners would seriously have better things to do than read about my search for life-satisfaction and gardening success (or lack thereof).  It turned out I was wrong, in both respects. 

So when I found out that had happened, I had two thoughts:  (1) Was there anything on here that made me look bad, professionally?  and (2) How creepy, that there are people out there that I would never even tell what I did on the weekends, and now they know that Kathy and I got in an argument over what towels to use and my identity as a  non-lawyer.


I have to say, my first reaction was to take it all down.  But then, I decided to make it private, look it over, and see what I really thought and felt about this.  With respect to the first issue, the answer is no, there really wasn't much that I would consider unprofessional.  Did I really dislike working at my old firm?  Yep, or I would not have quit working there.  Was it a big fat secret?  Nope.  Were there a lot of good people and good lawyers there?  Sure, of course.  But were there also some bad apples, that spoiled the lot? Yes to that too.  The point of this blog, with respect to writing about work, was to track the journey from unhappy at work, through staying home and re-assessing, to making the change to a job where I am (hopefully) much happier, at a firm that is (I already think) a much better fit for me.


With respect to the second issue, I decided to just let that go.  That is the nature of the beast.  I like to write about my life.  It's important to me.  It's not actually all that easy integrating into a family, and taking on three kids, and being a complete control freak about the way your house is run, and failing at numerous household projects.  Sometimes I want to work through things. Sometimes I just want to write about a funny thing that happened.  This blog, and writing about my life, has given me so much joy.  So oh, well. 

When you write, you either shut it in a drawer (metaphorically, of course, since I write on a computer) where it reaches no one, and write for the sake of writing, or you put it out there in the sun, for the world to see.  I like to put my writing out there, for the world to see.  Sometimes, people like it.  Sometimes, it resonates with people.  Sometimes, people hate it and think I'm an asshole.  I don't care about those people, for the most part.  They will stop reading.  I write for me, yes, but partly I write because I value the connection, both with the people who write me to say, "Just that, that is how I feel about it, too," and the people who say, "No, not really, I see it differently."  Also, for the people who read, and don't comment, but still keep coming back each time I post for a reason maybe they cannot even name.