Honestly

So, I decided to delete my post from Saturday night that was about the Hartman brother's crazy antics.  No one asked me to, but I realized that I wrote it very quickly and without much thought and I don't like to publish things that I write that way. 

Yes, it was dead-on true, and at the time I was a little frustrated, but the next day I felt bad, and didn't think it was fair. Yes, they were drunk and driving me crazy, but did the world really need to know the details?  Probably not....

Honesty in blogs is a sticky issue, and I definitely struggle with it.  On one hand, I want to be completely honest and open - all of my favorite blogs tend to be written by people who are waaaay more honest than I could ever be, and I love them for that.  On the other hand, I want to protect the people that I am writing about and don't want to hurt or upset anyone in the process. 

I am more than willing to criticize myself, my actions, analyze my thoughts, and totally make fun of myself.  But when it comes to other people, I want to make sure that I'm being fair when I write about them - after all, there's no reason to ruin the trust that someone has in you just for a blog article.

Dave, since he's my husband, sometimes gets dragged into my stories.  He usually has a very journalistic mind-set, but when it comes to reading my blog, he sometimes gets defensive, and I think it's because he's not used to reading about himself.  For example, he read post from a few weeks ago that described the rut (for lack of a better term) that our lives are in during the work week, and he was sad because he interpreted that as me saying that our lives are boring and/or that I was bored with the life that we have together.  Not so at all.  Monotony and routine are parts of nearly everyone's lives, and I was simply putting my version of it out there for others to know.  My guess is that nearly EVERYONE has a pretty standard routine each day and each week, but I'm willing to bet that you don't talk about it much, because people generally don't want to hear about (or talk about, for that matter) the mundane.

The journalist in Dave ordinarily might say, "freedom of the press, people have the right to know."  In fact, he said that a few years ago when a journalist was trying to get information out of me.  But I'm not so sure that he would say that about what I write in my blog, especially when it's about him.  He has a career to protect and it's my responsibility to make sure that I protect it as well.  When I second-guess something that I wrote that involved him, to me that means that it probably shouldn't be there.  That's why I decided to take Saturday's post down.   

It can be a fine line to walk, and it's one that I try to think about each and every time I post.  This is not to say that I am totally censoring what I write or that Dave is dictating what I can or can not post - after all, if that was the case, I'm pretty sure that the "my life during the work-week can be monotonous and routine" post wouldn't still be here.  Some people might criticize me for protecting him or for hiding some of the truth or lying by omission, and in some cases, that may be true.  But blogs don't necessarily have to be a spill-your-guts-for-all-to-see forum - sometimes they can be just be a way to chronicle life, to keep track of life's events in a venue that allows others to peek into.

So, while I cannot promise that I will always give "the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me god," I can promise that I will never write something that is NOT true. 

Honestly.