I am two things: a journalist and squeamish towards vulnerability.

Let me give you an example.

Two years ago, I started a blog. Within months it was deleted. I felt paralyzed when I saw the page views going up and would stumble with breathing if someone (God forbid) ever left a comment. HOW DARE YOU READ MY BLOG AND INVADE MY PRIVACY.

Singer/songwriter Anna Nalick said it best: “I feel like I’m naked in front of a crowd, cuz these words are my diary screaming out loud.” Preach, Anna, PREACH!

So why, as a journalist, am I afraid of expressing myself? Why has the phrase “unbiased member of the media” tainted my self composure?

Each day I ask others to be vulnerable with me. Tell me your story. I want to listen. But just don’t ask me any questions.

I have yet to find a book about a journalist that doesn’t like the roles reversed. Am I alone? Are you out there?

I tell other people’s stories all day, but when it comes to telling mine I panic. In conversation I can coax my words into submission, knowing that they will fade and pass. When I have to write something down, I crumble. Blogging is my nemesis because I publicly confront myself. Blogging is a conversation with myself that is frozen in the vortex of time and is sucked into the depths of the ethernet never to be swept away. In a conversation, you can always leave. If I write it out here, I have to depend on you to not read it to escape. Since you now know this, it’s obviously too late.

But it’s not too late to try to change.

Hakuna Matata.

I am coming for ya, blogging world. Ready your keyboards and digital screens because there ain’t no goin back.