Oh What a Tangled Web we Blog

Seems like most other expats we meet also have blogs and they want to trade blog addresses.  People want to read about our experiences here, as compared to theirs I guess.  Trouble is, though I try to be somewhat diplomatic, I think no one likes to be written about and even if it is semi-flattering or completely glowing, it still makes people feel uncomfortable.  Some of the stuff I have written is also maybe not all that flattering.  So I don't know what to do!  Do I give them the address even though I wrote about them, and just tell myself that they are reading my honest account?  Do I stall and avoid it till they forget?  Do I go back and edit relevant posts to exclude anything potentially objectionable?  

I told myself early on that as I was writing about my life here that I may not spill everything that I'd tell my girlfriends over lunch, but I would feel free to include things that I would write about if this were a memoir.  And that has to include the negative, it has to include some of the mundane, and it has to include the people.  Most of all it has to be honest, so presumably it would include some of the negative aspects of dealing with specific people, but that gets tricky for me personally.

This whole thing is very confusing and adds a whole level of complication to all of my relationships here.  I feel like someone who gets caught in their own web of lies and doesn't know how to keep it straight anymore.  I am not fabricating anything, but there is a different 'you' for every circle you join and it becomes increasingly difficult to keep this blog functioning for all my 'me's' while still giving you all back home the 'real' me and my 'real' life here.  I did make the decision to not give the address to any locals so that any negative Penang experiences I write about don't color their view of me.  But what about other potential readers?

I know some of you have questioned my negativity in some of my posts in the past and at first I got kind of down about it.  But you know what?  That's me.  I'm a little negative at times.  I whine a little.  Okay, maybe not a little.  I hope I am more than that, but I'm told I am loved and I have to believe that, and I am told I am missed, and I have to believe that.  So this is me!  And so I plod on with my account as is.

And what is it worth to me or you anyway if I am censoring everything to the point where it is just a superficial "We're fine.  Everything's fine"? 

Is that what you want?  Is that what I want to say?  Please don't answer that.  It's rhetorical.  I simply decided that, like it or not, this is my account, and if you want something that is positive and doesn't go in depth into my struggles and pleasures here in Penang, then just wait till we get back and I will tell you "it was fine, we enjoyed our experience" and you can be done with it.  If you want to hear about the struggles and everything else, then this is what you get.  And my experiences are inextricably tied to the people and the cultures I meet here.  So how can I avoid writing about them?

It's kind of a puzzle.  And I'd like to find the answer key.  George and I joked about a second 'fake' blog, but that has to be a joke.  Aside from the deception of it, this one here takes enough out of me already.  I love it, but I can't do more than one.  I haven't even been able to keep up with my 'day blogs' for the last year plus.

Hopefully this is more than an outpouring of my every waking thought.  I don't know what value it has.  I'm glad to hear that several of you feel more connected to me because of it all.  But I may be risking disconnections elsewhere.