Too Personal?

I definitely am revealing a lot about my personal life in this blog? Is it too much?

I was at a party last night with my friend Susan and we ran into another friend of ours. "I started reading your blog. But then it got real personal."

I nodded my head. "It's...personal." I happen to be watching "Annie Hall" on cable right now. That's personal, too.

Personal. I'm hung up on this. It's a trademark with me. I don't have a problem talking about any detail of my life. But there are things I do protect. Like the reason I broke up with my ex. His name. Although it probably wouldn't be hard for people to figure out. But as I once said to him:

"We're not Brad and Angelina." I don't think anyone cares about the whos. They care about the whys and the whats. I'm not writing this blog to out anyone or to expose their dirty laundry. As I said at the beginning of this thing, this is for me. And I guess in order to learn something, I have to get personal.

But do I have to do it in public? Yeah. Yeah, I do. It's been pretty amazing how many people have come forward to share their stories with me after they heard that I had broken up with my ex after five years.

We don't talk about things. We don't expose ourselves. I think that's a real problem. I guess all the work I do is personal. It comes from a personal place. I have a very good friend Dave who said once, "You just can't help but be yourself all of the time." He meant that as a complement.

He did. He's a priest. He wouldn't be sarcastic. Or patronizing. Or mocking. I don't think those are vows or sacraments they need to partake in. Sincerity. Priests are all about sincerity.

God, I hope he meant that as a complement. (And I mean God in the Gosh sense, not God in terms of the entity Dave's got a special in with)

But that's just who I am: me. It's kind of hard to escape. Outside of this blog, I write about things that concern me. Subjects that are personal. My friend Susan said that there's usually someone who represents her in every play. Or some aspect of her life, or a relative. I suppose SHE'S like Woody Allen in that way.

Everything's personal to me, even if it's not directly autobiographical. Because then, why not be an accountant or a lawyer. I probably was smart enough to do that. But I'm a writer. I'm the subject. I'm the conduit. I'm the interpreter.

That probably makes me sound like a bit of a narcissist. Oh, there I go again. Revealing too much.