Mid blog-life crisis

I feel compelled to write personal narrative, short memoir, an online journal, ego-driven navel-gazing, whatever you want to call it. And I want to do more of it, broaden my view of what's possible, including maybe even getting paid.

How can I write personal stories elsewhere while still shielding my family? I am an introverted over-sharer - it seems blogs were MADE for people like me - but my husband is very private and wary of online living. And my children? How can I predict what they will be comfortable with? How might my writing online affect their lives?

Currently this doesn't matter, because my blog has a small audience and is relatively anonymous. My family and select friends know about it but you can't Google my name, or any of my family's names, and find this website. I did that on purpose. It's highly unlikely that any ex-boyfriends or mean girls from junior high or local moms vetting play dates would stumble upon this space.

But now that I'd like to to try to write elsewhere, I guess I would need to put my real name out there. And then would I link to this website? Even if I get published elsewhere and don't link to this site, CG freaked me right out last night when he sat me down and explained how, in a matter of a few years, people will be able to Google search cross-referencing facial recognition of Facebook pictures, names, domains, FINGERPRINTS OF YOUR FIRSTBORN CHILD. (I'm pretty sure that last one was in there.)

So long, relative anonymity.

I am getting ahead of myself, of course. Like most of us SAHMs, I have precious little time to devote to anything but the daily grind- cooking vegetable my kids won't eat, vacuuming up Polly Pocket shoes, wiping impossibly small bottoms, you know the drill. It's all I can do most days to read a little bit and write a crappy first draft of a blog post. Writing that young adult novel I have in my head, finding a serious writing program, crafting freelance pieces - all these seem impossibly far off.

I think I'm having a mid blog-life crisis. What's a girl to do?

Keep writing, of course, one page, one day, at a time. That's the substance, the heart, of what I want. But I also crave change, in the what-the-heck-give-me-blonde-highlights! kind of way. So in lieu of a red convertible or a trophy husband, or those ill-advised blonde highlights, I'm going to get myself a bloggy makeover.

It's a start.

(Stay tuned.)