I never thought blogging would be my thing. I mean, I’m an I.T. professional. I’ve spent 15 years either in Programming or in IT Management. Why would I want to do this during my “off time” as well? Yea, I know, it’s not hard to blog. WYSIWYG editors and point-and-click make it foolproof, but it’s still sitting in front of a computer. And after 10 or 12 hour days of doing just that? No thanks.

My creative juices were generally nurtured by drawing, or quilting, or needlework. Gardening came a bit later. It was a return to a lower-tech way of life. I loved the way the colors in the quilt would work together. The way I could sit with my family on a rainy or snowy Michigan day and decompress from a week at work. Forget about travel headaches. Employee headaches. Client headaches. I was surrounded 40 or 50 hours each and every week by men and computers and business and suits. My free time was spent in more traditionally feminine pursuits.

Then, my work life started changing. I was definitely doing more of the Management thing than the IT stuff. I spent 3 years rearranging people’s lives and their livelihoods. I restructured and reorganized. My son was getting older and wasn’t that interested in spending all of his time around Mom. We moved out of a small condo and into a house. The 40 to 50 hours became 50 to 60 hour work weeks with two to three weeks of travel every month. It was taking a toll. There didn’t seem to be any free time for stitching or drawing. Three years went by and I didn’t pick up a needle or a piece of charcoal.

Then I sat down one day to find out how to transplant some hostas. I stumbled upon a couple of gardening blogs and had an “Ah ha” moment. So THIS is what blogging was all about. A gardening site led me to Susie Sunshine. I kept going back and read through all of her archives. I followed her links. I lost myself in your families and your lives; your joys and heartbreaks. I told Mr. Hot about them. He looked at me one day and said

“Your life would make a great blog. Think about it. You’re the only woman doing what you do for your company. You have a stay at home dad for a husband. You’re on the road and right now you’re all about working yourself out of the career you’ve had for 15 years. You can talk about your hotfessional wardrobe and the idiots that you deal with.”

And so, “My Life as a Hotfessional” was born in May 2007. It’s been a way for me to be creative. I get to unleash my inner snark. I have to be buttoned up and proper and polite while I’m in the office. Yet, so much of my life isn’t buttoned up or proper or polite. It’s cursed and foul-mouthed. It’s broken bra straps and snapped heels and hems that fall down. It’s late planes and disabled trains and cab drivers that make me car sick.

And I love it. I love my life, I love having this blog. I’m amazed at the reactions people have and the joy I get when I hit the Publish button. I love feeling the words come and the effort it takes to balance the humor and the snarkiness. I love finding the exactly right phrase to say what is on my mind.

What I didn’t expect was that I would get to the point where, after less than 100 posts, I am thinking about shutting down this blog because someone that I haven’t had any contact with for nearly 17 years found it. It’s been an interesting couple of weeks – the first comment and now a request for further communication. I have turned on moderation of comments and now I’m refusing anonymous posts. If one day, you come here and find that I’m gone, you’ll understand why. I’m a bit frightened. For my family and for myself. Although I know this person wouldn’t do me any physical harm, the mental aspects of wondering – Why after so long? How long has this person been following me? – are waking me up at night.

I find myself censoring my posts. I promised myself I would never do that. I would protect the innocent and be generic, but I wouldn’t censor. I would say what was in my heart, but even if I had to cloak it, it would be honest.

I blog as a release. I blog to try to make others laugh and forget about their problems. I blog to re-gather some of the creativity I don’t get to use being in my line of work. I ask this person to respect this and although I can’t prevent them from reading, I can ask that they refrain from contacting me in the future. That’s all I can ask.