Writing, Boundaries, and Life

Greetings readers!  I am up in the middle of the night again, seems to be my “time” of day to get things done.  I’ve been reading other blogs (some of them yours I am sure!) and contemplating different writing prompts.  I’ve been sort of “stuck” lately on what or how to write here.  I realized through a Daily Om post about fear that it’s some very basic fear that has my creativity squashed a bit.  I am fearful of writing and offending people, which just has never been like me.  But as I get to “know” more of my readers, I am sometimes inhibited by that as to what I am comfortable writing about.

One of the prompts I was reading was about boundaries.  As in what are my boundaries concerning writing about friends, family and people that I know?  And then what boundaries do I have in disclosing about myself?

To address the first, I always try to write about people anonymously.  I have given people nicknames, and have used other means of not disclosing their identities to protect their own personal privacy.  And when someone reads me and can see themselves in my writing, it’s not my intention to ever hurt.  I write about my own feelings, my own experiences, and my own opinions of what is going on.  Sometimes I write what I can’t quite seem to say at the exact time that I am engaging someone in conversation.  So later on, when I am in “writing mode” I may address an issue that I have with someone.  I have written about people who are very close to my heart, and about those I have been involved with on a more intimate level at times, I have learned that this is not such a great idea though, and that even with anonymity that people will get upset with me on occasion.  Then sometimes I am very much writing with certain people in mind, and they usually get the message if they are smart enough to recognize themselves.

When writing about myself I am pretty much an open book.  I do try to be as truthful and honest about myself and my world as I possibly can be.  I am not ashamed of who I am one iota.  I never try to tone down my Butchness, as it’s all part of the real me, and I can’t understand why anyone would try to be anything less than real.  I don’t buy into many of the societal norms; the classist bullshit that goes on in the world.  I take people at face value 99% of the time.  So on a scale of 1 to 10 as to how much of my personal life I reveal in my blogs I would say it’s about a 7….I do keep my very most personal stuff to myself, or to my written non-published journals, or to private conversations with those closest to me.  I am pretty open about who I am, although I write under the “MainelyButch” moniker most of you know my name and some are even Facebook friends, family or other close friends.  I am not sure when I publish my book what I will use as a pen name.  I am rather fond of the MainelyButch persona and it’s fairly (after 10 years of using it across the web) well known now. It started when I founded using the name on my Youtube channel (which is in BAD need of updating and new videos!) and progressed to WordPress and blogging.

My blog reflects what is going on in my life at the moment most of the time.  I write almost daily, and sometimes it’s just about boring daily life in Maine, or the boring life of a Butch in rural America.  I think that blogging is a great way to get to know people; and I have gotten to know a few of you from your blogs, or from meeting you because of my blog.  I enjoy my conversations with fellow bloggers, reading of your daily lives, seeing photos of where you are in life, or of what interests you.  I try to keep up as much as possible with my favorite bloggers, and I know a few of you keep up with my daily posts — thanks so very much, by the way!  Blogging / writing is a real stress buster for me and is something that I am very passionate about in my life.  I will never give it up.

I used to be much better with my photography than I have been as of late.  I am in desire of a new camera, and have beaten the older ones up quite a bit.  I am rough on equipment sometimes, like yesterday I dropped my main handheld camera (Kodak 710) and bent the lens casing…but it still works, and the lens still functions fully, so it’s not completely destroyed, and I do have other even better cameras to be truthful, that’s just my favorite “go-to” unit to use.  I plan to do a lot more photography this coming Spring, and will be updating my photos on a much more regular basis.  Perhaps I will managed to get a new camera even…I’m not sure if it’s really in the budget, and because I do own a few of them now I kind of feel guilty about even wanting another one…although my technology in photography is about 2 years behind now.  Still these cameras are working fine, and produce excellent shots for things like my blog and my online shop.

Winter continues to drag on here in southern Maine….more snow is expected today.  It seems that we don’t even count it now unless it’s over 6″ of accumulation, anything less is just a “dusting” as we say.  We got about three inches night before last and I still haven’t even touched the shovel to clean it up.  My poor little snowblower was rendered useless this year by the un-Godly amount of snow that fell from January 31st to now….it’s meant to handle maybe 4″ to 6″ of lighter snow, and could in no way touch the 16″ and 20″ storms that we had at the beginning of February.  This winter has been one for the record books for sure, being the coldest since 1940-41 and we are just about to hit a record for snowfall as well.  It’s been hard on everyone with trying to manage it, navigate in it and live inside because of it.  Cabin fever, road rage and general mayhem are at an all time high here!  I saw a photo from the Portland, Maine police department the other day of a station wagon with a freaking snowmobile stuffed into the back of it, whole front end and skis hanging out the back….only in Maine…

Until next time… ~MB