Walking on egg shells

I realised recently that my blog has been gradually getting more and more vague when it comes to some of the people close to me. I'm not a spiteful or vindictive person, and I try to avoid saying things that might upset people around me. The result, unfortunately, is that I feel limited in what I write about, as if I'm walking on egg shells, afraid to put a foot wrong and make a mess.

Something that was said to me in an anonymous comment on one of my blog posts some time ago, which I mistakenly deleted when I intended to prepare a response to it before approving it, was that my blog was insulting to the people that I talk about. I've tried to understand the logic of that for quite a while, but haven't succeeded so far.

If I was naming people and saying negative things about them, I would certainly be insulting them. I don't think that I've ever said anything insulting about anybody in my blog. I've always tried to be objective and to simply describe things as they happen. The only way that someone reading my blog can know who I'm talking about is if the reader knows me and knows the people around me well enough to make the connection. If someone would be insulted by my describing their behaviour, does that mean that they feel guilty about that behaviour?

Perhaps the anonymous comment came from someone who felt guilty about their own attitudes. If someone can explain to me just why they think that I'm insulting people that I've written about in my blog, I'd love to know. I guess I might never know, and I'm not going to lose any more sleep over it.

I have an aunt who has chosen to estrange herself from one of my brothers and his family for over a decade, and seemed to have included me in that estrangement by deciding that I had taken their side. I went out of my way to try to reconcile with her around the time that I was considering getting involved in politics. After I decided that I wasn't going to get involved in politics unless I was open about my crossdressing, I visited her and told her about it. At the time, her response was basically that she didn't want to know, but as long as I didn't discuss it I could still talk to her.

Afterwards, I was very indirectly informed that I was never to visit her again, with a threat of violence if I did. Later still, I was told by my mother that my aunt was of the opinion that I had been lecturing her about accepting crossdressing. I've had no contact since, and it will probably stay that way for the rest of her life. While I'm not saying that I'm happy about that, I'm also not unhappy about it. We were estranged, I made an effort to try to fix it and she made a choice to reject me.

I think that I'm a realist. Not everybody is going to accept me for who I am, but if someone chooses to reject me, I see that as their problem, not mine.