Escoger un Diario Publico
Trip Start
Aug 08, 2008
1
21
42
Trip End
Oct 12, 2008
Puriscal,
Costa Rica
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The primary advantage of a blog is that everyone can see it. This saves me time and keeps everyone back home as much in the loop as they care to be. (Not everyone--in fact, probably no one besides my mother--is interested in every last excruciating detail about who I met, what they said, and whether they were enthusiastic or perfunctory. A mass email, as impersonal as it is, still tends to make people feel obligated to read the whole wretched thing.) The primary disadvantage of a blog, of course, is that everyone can see it.
I worry sometimes about whom I might offend with my candor. It would be dishonest not to describe the bad along with the good when writing about Costa Rica or the CCS program, but I don't want to create ill will. My fellow volunteers all have my blog address, and as a few of them have commented on some of my entries, I know they're reading it at least sporadically (along with at least one fellow volunteer's parents). I have also heard from one complete stranger here in Costa Rica who stumbled upon my blog while surfing for distractions at work. It was lovely to hear from her, but it was also a sharp reminder that what I write here is open to the whole world.
My private diaries have included much more of my own personal mess of issues. Past trip journals of mine have whined endlessly about the boys I hadn't gotten over, the needs my friends and travel companions couldn't fulfill, my anxieties over what was to come, and the various revolting ways my all-too-human body let me down. It's probably better to keep a lid on that stuff in a public forum, as well.
So I end up glossing over the less pleasant aspects, or omitting them entirely. This makes it more pleasant to read later, even for me, but it also makes it less authentic. For better or worse, I am a mess--we all are, to some degree--and cleaning up the mess while leaving no private record of it is like airbrushing out the zits in your prom pictures; it makes it harder to face the wrinkles that show up in your high school reunion photos. Re-reading my anguished accounts of the darkest times of my life is in some ways inspiring, because it makes me realize that I'd forgotten how much my last breakup, biggest fight with a friend, most frightening moment far from home, or worst case of food poisoning, sucked; this gives me faith that my present problems will soon be dim memories, as well. It also reassures me that I have the strength to get through them, and that I will grow stronger by them, because, holy crap, did I really used to worry myself sick over which book to bring to camp so the other kids wouldn't make fun of me? Yep, I did. And I don't anymore.
That reassurance is what I'm afraid this story is missing.
