{Exposed}

Trying to figure out "my word" for the new year got me to thinking about what word best fit for 2010.

I looked for a word last year and couldn't find one. I wanted a word...
but nothing seemed to "fit" so I moved on. Forgot about it, until I would read about someone else's word, read these wonderful posts all about their words and their goals and plans and I would be a little envious that my word had never fell into my lap last year. I know one wasn't really going to fall into
 my lap,  but this year I was determined to wait it out until one came to me.

But my word for last year... I think it would be exposed.
I definitely didn't intend for that word to be mine,
but looking back, I think it fits. Exposed. I did way more of than that than I thought
I would/could last year. I am the person that cannot imagine having a Facebook page for my blog that would link ME, with my regular Fb account, back to my blog. Did that make sense?
 Humiliating. Embarrassing.
Way too much exposure for me. Is that weird? I guess if I didn't talk about anything personal on my blog I might feel different about it. I wouldn't want a lot of my Facebook "friends" (who many of which are really just acquaintances, as we all know) to be all up in my business.
Not that I have any exciting business.
And there is no judging those of you that mesh those two worlds,
I just can't do it,  but I admire you for that. Seriously.

I started this blog several months before the New Year last year....in September. So by the time the
new year rolled around I was well into the world of blogging. I don't think many people read this little blog of mine at all then (okay, I know they didn't), but I had found some sort of  rhythm to blogging.
To writing and sharing my pictures and my life and...all of it. And I loved it. I loved the feeling of having something to say and actually saying it, just getting it out there...and out of ME.  It was just for me. Both blogging and photography have done that for me. I've said it before but I think it bears repeating;
I do not at all considers myself a writer but a blogger. There is a difference folks and I'm okay with that. Photographer? Well, I'm working on that one.

Picture taken by my little guy and he didn't cut my head off...little too close though : )


In blogging there is a fine line for me...what to share, what not to share, what problems/struggles
 to put out there for all of the world to see, and which ones to share with only a few of
 the closest people in your life. I don't want my little space here to look only like well-behaved kids, an always positive mom and wife spending her days baking and antiquing with date nights every weekend. That's not reality. There is so much more than that to my life.

It took a while but I got to a point where I felt like I could step out of the safe zone
  and share a little more here. That part was hard for me though.  Really hard.
But I did it...here and here and here.
And it's scary and sometimes after you do it you want to go back and push delete
 immediately but you don't. Sometimes your finger even hovers over "delete" and you hear your
mom in your mind saying; "Amy, why are you putting all your business out there?"
{hahaha...and my mom does not even read my blog, but she's still in my head}
But then you do it and you feel better. Like a weight is gone... and the bonus?
Other people understand and can relate to you. And that's a good thing.

You know what I have come to realize?
Who needs therapy?  I blog. 
I want people to be able to relate to me and my real life, I don't want to sugar-coat
things here, but there are things I just don't feel comfortable sharing either. And I think that's okay, too.

I'm still working on putting myself in FRONT of the camera and being in pictures, it's not that easy.

I find it embarrassing and uncomfortable but I am working on it.

Because I want my kids to have pictures of me... and pictures of me with them...

no matter how I think I look right now.

Exposing myself a little at a time...slowly. It's a process though, not a goal to be met.

So exposed  totally fits for last year. And it's something I will continue to work on.
Exposing the good, the bad and the ugly...one post at a time.

******
So thank you for being a part of all of this for me.
For being virtual cheerleaders, giving advice and sending positive emails and encouraging me...
with life and being a parent and photography, the good stuff, the bad stuff...just all of it.
It truly makes this world of ours feel so much smaller. And I love that.