Over a year ago I started my original blog, intending to document my final year in my job. Having done a lot of reading about succession planning, I thought a blog providing insight into a succession planning process in progress would fill a gap. So, I started writing. But I followed my instinct, confirmed by other coalition director friends, not to make the blog public. There was too much current content about people’s reactions to my plans to leave the Coalition after 30 years.
My plan then was to keep writing “After Grace” (the name I gave the blog), and wait to make the posts public during this year, my year after leaving. I’d write about what I was going through having made, or being in the midst of making, a huge transition, and then also post whatever I’d written the year before.
But by March I was hardly writing any posts for After Grace, and then I finally stopped. There wasn’t just too much current content about other people, there was too much content about other people period. That’s an issue I think any personal blogger has to pay attention to, the boundary between one’s own story and others’. What are my stories to tell, and what stories do I have no right to make public?
So for now, After Grace will be a private record. In the weeks to come, I’ll review the posts and see if there’s anything that would be appropriate and worthwhile to post.
In terms of my own story post-Coalition, I’m too busy right now to comment.
Grace Mattern 