Diaries, Journals, and what am I doing with this Blog anyway?

I recently heard an NPR interview with David Sedaris, an essayist whose hilarious accounts of his OCD and French language lessons have left me laughing so hard I could hardly breathe.  He was making the distinction between journals and diaries. Simply put, Journals are for writing down what happens. Diaries, on the other hand, record how you feel about what happens.

Now blogs are different. Blog is short for Weblog. A log was originally a record of the day-to-day happenings on a ship, so it's actually more of a technical journal than a diary.

Blogs run the gamut. Some report news or information of one kind only. Others are highly emotional screeds that can be a bit much to someone not personally involved with the blogger. So I've started to ask myself what I want my blog to look like. What do I want to include here? Do I want only to record my cancer-goings on? Or do I want to expand and offer up more personal information? On my last post, Katie, an old friend of mine from my home town thanked me for letting people into my head. But do I really? On occasion, I suppose.

I was raised to believe that the best conversationlist listens much and says little. But I'm thinking that maybe I want some sort of record left behind for my family, my children, my grandchildren that is more encompassing - something that chronicles me - not just my cancer. Emptying my mind onto a page could serve this purpose.

See now that's telling.

Using the word 'emptying my mind' instead of 'emptying my heart'. I am a person of the mind. I follow my mind because my heart has been very, very wrong a number of times. Perhaps I'll find some middle ground in that regard.

I guess my hope is that I'll share more, and more often - perhaps I'll include more personal photos and details of my everyday life as long as they're not to terribly boring.

We'll see how it goes.