Everything I write is inspired somehow by my real life. I imagine that’s true for all writers. Some things I’ve written–some of the most profound things–were directly inspired by real life events, by meat space interactions with real people. I realized a long time ago that most people don’t appreciate their dirty laundry being aired in public, so then I tried to couch those thoughts in ambiguous and impersonal terms, to remove them a step or two from real life. I thought I was doing good by hiding names and specific details.
That wasn’t enough.
I just removed forty-six posts from my blog. Not because they weren’t valuable. Many of them contained profound and important truths, but I can’t say the things I need to say and still maintain good relationships with the people around me. I don’t know how to reconcile the two right now, so the world will just have to survive with a hobbled version of my personal truth.