Somehow along the way I grew up...

If you IM with me you will recognize the title of this post as my most recent IM message. Depending on my mood of the day you never know what I'll have as my latest IM message. But this is something that both I and those around me have noticed lately.

When I found sex blogs a year and a half ago I never expected to write one myself or to take on another identity. It really started very much as a joke on someone else and how they were living their life online with their blogettes and the need to constantly be written about. I even started out writing about "Diva" in the third person especially when describing much of my life as a blogette and I now realize it was a way of distancing myself because even then I knew deep down something was fucked up. As time went on I was told to write nice things on my blog and didn't find my actual voice until months later when I began to write the actual truth of both what I thought and how I felt about things.

In the beginning of blogging I remember always thinking of how I was now part of this semi-famous blogworld that I had only read about. I was now one of those actual people in it and would be in awe seeing my blog listed under the "friends" on their blogroll. Then came the time I could no longer ignore the lies or the real world and I realized all of that had just been an escape.

After hitting bottom I thought long and hard of what I wanted in my life and who I wanted in it. I started to make choices based only on my happiness and not trying to please others or make them like me. I didn't need to find my identity of who I was from anyone else.

We all carry these double identities online and for me it has been a struggle. Maybe because I had such a fucked up beginning online. I don't want to ever escape anything in my real life by being "Diva" online and yet "Diva" is a part of who I am now. Late last year Dacia and I had this conversation at brunch which she wrote about here. At the time I had been having some of these same thoughts and trying to figure out how to combine both of my identities.

I have seen some people online who have low self esteem or some type of unhappiness in their lives take on another identity. They can be anyone online when they do this and they find others to give them validation of who they are instead of dealing with their actual problems or figuring out for themselves who they are. That was how I started but along the way I found my identity and strength on my own to face things. It still amazes me at times some of the people I see who need to do this and in some cases even spend several years doing this. Some will even say "but I'm not like her" only to not see they are in fact exactly the same.

At one time it thrilled me to see myself mentioned on other blogs or linked by well known bloggers. I thought that was what was important and made me who I was. Maybe it is finally feeling the security and confidence in myself that none of that is important to me any longer. Don't get me wrong, it still makes me happy when one of my friends writes something about me. I just don't need any of that like I thought I did last year.

I somehow managed to grow up along the way and found who I am or at least what direction I am now going. Many of my friends are online and well known yet I don't see them that way. Many are people I had read and admired that I was blessed enough to meet and build friendships with. But I know it wasn't "Diva" who did that it was ME. Just me.

If you noticed lately I actually live much of my life offline. I don't write about who I am out with or what we are doing like I had in the past. My twitters will at times reflect some of my daily life but there is much of my life these days I am living out of the public eye. The other change I have made is to incorporate my everyday life and family into that of my online life. That includes my children and being more open with them and sharing them with my online friends.

I'll always be "Diva" online and meet new people because of that but the difference now is that none of it is based on just sex and I don't need someone else to feel the validation of who I am. I found that on my own and with my own choices.