I used to be good at the internet

Three or so years ago, I used to be a proficient blogger. True story. I was not the kind of blogger who wrote about interesting topics or had a large following, however, my friends and I all seemed to have Livejournals and we wrote about everything almost every day.

I've been trying to stretch my memory back to the times before graduate school, when I was not afraid of being exposed by the world wide web and having it cost me me job or future employment. My resolve still wavers back and forth between the desire to put myself out there in the projects that I do and my fear of losing my anonymity. I worry the the internet is endless and that eventually it all cycles back in your face and into the eyes of others. How do people stand the international shame of starring in a YouTube video with twenty-gazillion hits where everyone is laughing at your misfortunes caught on tape? I never understood how people were able to qualify for serious-business-type jobs after posing for Playboy, or being one of the ladies in the Girls Gone Wild TV commercials, or being on reality TV in any capacity.

My writer friends don't blog because if they write something truly compelling and it is available on the internet, they probably can't get that piece published. My fear does not have such ambitious roots, rather it stems from a paranoia I have yet to name.

I lost part of myself in graduate school. If it is not completely gone, it has become scattered or forgotten and I am trying to get back to some piece of that place.