On Not Wanting an Audience for Every Thought Anymore

Anytime I find myself flirting with mild writer's block, I think wistfully back to the period of my life when I had to limit myself to two or three posts a day. I honestly had too many things to say back then — what honestly felt like every little thought at times.

LiveJournal-era me treated the entire internet like a shared diary, a public processing plant, and a place where thoughts should go the moment they appeared, still warm from the oven and often embarrassingly unfiltered.

If I didn’t post something that crossed my mind right away, it felt wrong. Like I was withholding evidence of my own existence at a time when I really needed to exist and be witnessed.

But back then, oversharing didn’t feel embarrassing or risky, the way it sometimes does now. It felt... necessary and honest on a level I still wasn't really allowed to be in my offline life. I wrote things down while they were still sharp, still bleeding a little, and people responded.

I put the feeling somewhere outside my body so it wouldn’t rot inside me.

Earlier, Seth and I were actually talking about how neither of us feels much pull toward that level of sharing anymore, and not necessarily in the “kids these days” way it probably sounds like. It's like how you eventually stop craving certain foods you once couldn't get through the day without.

The logistics, as far as what feels like it's going to feed you, just change over time.

The Era of Overflow

The early internet had a way of rewarding immediacy, and that was quite the draw for someone like me who didn't have a safe place to express herself offline. If you were emotional, confused, spiraling, or ecstatic, there was always a place to put it.

And a surprising number of people willing to read it.

Oversharing wasn’t framed as a problem. (Actually, I'm not sure oversharing was even a thing yet.) The era when your online life was inseparable from your offline one was still years away, so it was just how people did things back then.

Little pockets of web real estate (like LiveJournal, my original home base) gave me places to be myself without any pressure to make anything of it. There were no endless feeds back then or constant algorithmic noise. Everything was just pockets of people checking in on each other’s inner lives in real time, occasionally adding multiple daily posts of their own to the mix.

Sometimes I miss the stamina, openness, and complete lack of shame that version of me had. She felt things intensely and didn't yet have a doubt in her mind that other people would respond to it with awe and wonder.

Oversharing was functional, rather than foolish. And it worked (until it didn't).

The Quiet Change

I'm still not sure whether this was about the internet changing or maybe just me getting older. But at some point, I stopped feeling the urge to narrate everything as it happened. I also stopped liking the attention being chronically visible online used to get me, and it's never completely come back.

I was in a relationship with someone I could actually talk to by then, so there was a lot less emotional overspill to deal with. And once everyone else I knew was online, as well — parents, clients, exes, old classmates — I found myself wanting to simply be private (or even silent) more often.

I guess when you’re younger, you trade access for connection without thinking much about it. But when you’re older, you start doing the math.

Turns Out There's a Difference Between Expression and Exposure

Expression is something you choose. There’s a sense of shape to it for that reason, even when the content itself is messy or woefully unstructured. You’re sharing because it clarifies something for you, or maybe just because you feel like it belongs out in the world in that moment.

Exposure, on the other hand, feels compulsive. It's like spastically emptying your pockets onto the sidewalk just to prove you were there.

Once upon a time, I used to confuse the two. I don’t anymore.

These days, I'd much rather say something with substance behind it than spew something immediate about my lunch or my dreams from the night before just because. I’m willing to let a thought mature a little before deciding it needs to see the light of day. Sometimes things turn out to be important, but others evaporate on their own, which is honestly for the best.

If life's taught me anything at this point, it's that I'm way better off keeping quite a few of my thoughts and doings to myself. The world really doesn't need to see every selfie or hear every wayward thought I have about whatever television show or song I'm obsessed with at the time.

What I Don't Share Anymore (And Why)

I have so many categories of experience I once would have posted about without hesitation that now feel very private by default:

• Moments I'd rather live than document
• Complex feelings and experiences I'm still unpacking
• Conflicts that don’t benefit from other people's potential commentary
• Personal information about me or my life that is truly none of anyone's business

And no, that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped writing about hard things. I've just stopped writing about them while I’m still inside the experience of living them. Most of the time, I know the difference.

No One Owes the Internet Their Interior Life

Every so often, I'll run into someone I used to know online, and they'll say something about missing the way I used to be. They miss seeing daily makeup selfies or art posts where I'd explain in detail what the piece was actually about. They miss hearing my rants about all the random shit that used to bother me from moment to moment.

But the thing is, people are allowed to change how visible they are and to want privacy without justifying it. And it's their prerogative to write obliquely, selectively, or not at all.

I don’t necessarily write or post less excessively now because I have less to say. More like I write differently because I’ve learned what actually deserves a room of its own and how to separate it from what can be left unspoken without being lost.

Oversharing with wild abandon isn't anything I'd do today, but I’m kind of grateful I had that era, regardless. I’m just as grateful I don’t live there anymore.