Who is she, anyway?

There are times, when blogging, where I wonder what people think if they actually met me. I try to be as real on my blog as I am in real life. I don't hide behind a persona, I am who I am. But those who know me in person don't seem to perceive me the same way as those who know me via my blogging moniker and Hebrew name, Chaviva.

Are these two different people? Have I split to become real-life, kind, people dig me and my ideas and explanations Amanda, with the other half being poorly worded, contested, irrelevant, obsolete in her attempts at discussing things Chavi?

You tell me. But I'm beginning to wonder if somewhere I got forked and completely missed it.

I began blogging in 1998 or 1999 over on livejournal.com. I went through three blog names between then and 2006. That's a lot of writing junk on the internet for all to take in. I spent most of those years talking about school and boys and love and poetry. But I started to dabble in writing about Judaism in 2004-2006. Then I discovered blogger, and I decided to really get to it. To focus myself and write about what was most important to me: Judaism. This is a blog about a Jew, by a Jew.

So what? Am I self-satisfying? Are my motives keeping this blog really exploitation of who I am, or who I strive to be? Am I just blowing smoke?

Maybe I don't want the answer. Maybe I do. Maybe I just want to be taken seriously, to have my spirit and my soul seen as genuine and true.

But this is the internet, and that's expecting too much.