I already have a blog, so what am I doing here?

Hello blog world. Or rather, hello again. Sort of.

I have a blog. I've had a blog since August of 2009, and I've written there, on and off, ever since. That blog has been through template changes, color changes, name changes... we've been through so much, that blog and I. We've been through ups and downs, shared both amazing moments and utterly heartbreaking details of my life.

And then I was done.

Towards the end, I changed gears and tried making it mostly a beauty review/craft blog, but I lost interest in the reviews, and the change of pace didn't help save my blog in my mind, only prolonged the inevitable. I stopped writing there in April of last year. And I couldn't bring myself to go back.

But I wanted to go back. I found myself - many times each month -  thinking "I should blog about this!" But then I wouldn't. I couldn't.

Why?

I felt... I felt I had shared too much. In specific, I separate my online world from my real world. I'll share aspects of one with another, but rarely do I share too much of my online world with my real world.

Yes, I said that right. No, I didn't have a problem with sharing too much of my real life. I had a problem sharing too much with my real life.

I had that blog for years, and while real life friends knew that I blogged, I never shared the blog with them. And then I took the plunge and showed my site to a close friend, who was looking in to starting a blog herself. From then on, I felt as if she were reading everything on my blog, and judging me.

And then she and I had a falling out. A nasty one, where both of us were at fault. And while things were still bad between us, she would read my blog with a mutual friend and nit pick. She would judge me. About everything I posted, even the good things! So I was right about that feeling. I lost her as a friend eventually, but I kept up with my blog. That is when I changed course and tried reviewing.

And then last year, that mutual friend she would read my blog with? We started growing apart. And again, I felt as if she could just open up my blog whenever she wanted... and judge me.

No more please. I already feel stinted in instagram because my sister in law now follows me. And I rarely ever post on Facebook because there's too much real life there. I realized at the end of last year that the only way I could possibly start blogging again was to cut ties with my old blog and begin anew.

That being said, it's odd writing this here. Unfamiliar. Soon, I hope, I'll be able to call this blog my new home.