Dear Diary,

I went back to work yesterday. It was OK, but by god was I busy!
I already had a lot of respect for librarians, but now I am in AWE. How they manage to teach a full and rich program to a bunch of classes, as well as doing library stuff is (at the moment) beyond me! I'm sure once I get the hang of it, it will be better, but my goodness!

I suppose it doesn't help that I'm still feeling a bit under the weather. I really should try and get to the doctor I guess. Like I said in a previous post, last time I had a sinus infection like this, I ended up with pneumonia. It doesn't seem to be getting any better. This morning I woke at 4am (god knows why!) but couldn't get back to sleep. After a while I got up, thinking I'd go to the gym and then write in my blog. But when I got up my head was so heavy, and I was coughing a bit, so I just lay on the couch for a while. Feeling a bit better now, but I shouldn't really take any chances. Off to the doctor today methinks!

That reminds me, the other day when I saw my lovely (wonderful, awesome, fantastic) brother and sister in law, Laura asked me how I was feeling, as she'd seen my post about being sick.
This happens a lot - someone will mention something related to a blog post, and for a moment I'll think 'how the heck did they know that?'
That's also how I ended up with all the dragonflies. People read or hear about something, and then they act on it. It's almost exponential sometimes too! After my post about the dragonfly, a lovely work colleague presented my with a cute stick-on dragonfly which now sits inside my phone case. Thanks A!)
Despite the initial surprise when someone makes a comment like that, I find that I don't actually mind it. It's funny, I do tend to be quite a loud-mouth at times, and occasionally over-share, but there are some things I don't discuss with many people at all. But these thoughts (and sometimes secrets) do go on here, even though I know (mostly) who is probably going to read about it.

I wonder what it is that makes us more comfortable sharing our innermost thoughts and feelings on (digital) paper; things that we probably wouldn't readily discuss? Perhaps we're afraid of the reaction? Perhaps it gives people time to think about what we've said?

I remember years ago (when I was a teenager), my dad found my diary by accident. He didn't read much (these days, I don't really care if he did, I probably would do the same if I came across something that my kids wrote), but commented on something I'd written about my Poppa (he had died not too long before that). I was a moody teen at the time, and these thoughts were probably not something I was going to talk about with my parents, but in a way I was glad that my dad knew how I felt.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't advocate reading other people's diaries, and I certainly wouldn't go looking for one, but what is a blog but a more sophisticated, online version of a diary?

I think for me, maybe I do want to share, but I'm afraid that people don't want to hear about it (or at least want to choose the time and place that they do hear about it). This comes down to some of my longstanding personal issues I guess: I don't want to be boring; I don't want to be a burden; I want to be able to be the good listener...etc...

I'm not going to be solving my personality/self-esteem issues any time soon. In fact I probably never will, but it doesn't matter. I'm happy with this arrangement. I get to say how I feel, and you get to choose whether or not you listen. And please, dear reader, don't feel bad if you don't feel like reading, because I've got it out of my system now anyway!

Perhaps I should dig out some of my old diaries. Should be good for a laugh!