Zoom played a number on us because it opened up our private lives and made them public, and now we don’t know what hit us.

It wasn’t too long ago when we didn’t want anyone to see us on a camera, let alone in our homes, unless we spent a lot of time primping and cleaning first.

Now we look into the Zoom camera like it’s a mirror, “Oh no. I look that bad.” And then we adjust our hair real quick. (Well, if I had enough hair).

We show up in sweatpants or our pajama bottoms and a nice shirt and invite one another into a piece of our homes.

There’s no telling what we’ll find–bedrooms, kids, spouses, dogs, and decoration preferences.

We used to ask how much do I tell? Now we’re left scratching our heads. Have I shown too much?

Not me, of course. I’ve never shown too much, except that one time in High School, which doesn’t count.

I prided myself on being a great driver until the day I rammed the car into the garage wall and made a window through the sheetrock.

Even then, who had to know? It’s not like I had to tell anybody, except Mom and Dad, who had to pay for the damage. And, luckily, the garage didn’t butt up against the house, so there was no urgency to fix it anyway.

When I told Mom, she said, “Wait until your father finds out.”

He was on a road trip, so I had lots of time to worry about what would happen when “your father” came home. TROUBLE.

I rationalized to Mom that he didn’t use the garage, so did he have to know? If only I could add some curtains and call it a re-decorating job.

But Mom suggested I tell Dad in the presence of a reporter, who we coincidentally expected to visit a few hours after Dad returned home. I wasn’t so keen on the idea, but I feared Dad’s reaction more than embarrassing myself in front of a stranger, so I agreed.

When Dad got home, I couldn’t look at him. I was so scared. Just a few more hours until the reporter came.

So when the cast of us assembled, Mom said, “Your daughter wants to show you something.”

The three of them followed me into the garage, where I timidly showed off my handiwork.

It turns out I had nothing to worry about as far as my Dad’s reaction. We all got a great laugh.

It was the laugh that kept on giving. A year later, when someone said something about my driving. I bragged, “I’ve never gotten in an accident.”

He said, “Oh yeah. What about that time you went through the garage.”

I looked at him in disbelief. I hadn’t told that story to anyone—no one except…that reporter. Wasn’t he supposed to be writing about my Dad anyway? Plus, it wasn’t technically an accident.

Sometimes when we’ve revealed a little too much, it’s only natural we want to take it back. It’s that private vs. public angst we’ve always got going.

Even now, people getting vaccinated have what they’re calling re-entry anxiety.

People are having a hard time getting back into their public lives again. But is it any wonder?

With a bit of help from Zoom, we’ve learned to share pieces of ourselves that usually would have been off-limits. We can’t draw a hard line in the sand and have public and private sides. We don’t know anymore.

Think of it the way a writing teacher once explained. We’re sitting around a campfire, showing off our public selves. That fire is our soul, the most personal, intimate thing about us.

We go around the circle and take turns going up to the fire to tell our story. Even though we might want to, we can’t run away.

Like life, no one wants to get close to the fire, let alone get burned.

We’ve edged closer to the fire than ever before.

But now that we’ve mixed private and public to the point where we can’t distinguish the two anymore, maybe we even want to take back, let’s say, what we showed the reporter that day.

It’s a realization that can cause a lot of anxiety. I can’t tell you how many times I hit send on my blog, and I say, “I shouldn’t have published that.” Okay, almost every week.

That’s because every week, I get so close to the fire I can hear my hair sizzle. I’m practically on fire. It feels scary, and I wonder what I have done. Why I rammed that car into the garage in the first place?

Let’s face it. Zoom has opened up a window to our private selves. Now that the vaccination has us going public again, what happens?

Understandably we’re feeling vulnerable and anxious. People have accidentally seen us on a deeper, more intimate level.

Once we’ve been vulnerable, do we take it back and pretend it never happened? (The reporter didn’t know what he was talking about,) That’s what we want to do. That’s the terrifying place we go when we stand too close to the fire.

But that’s where the magic in our relationship begins.

Publically, we can pretend to be that excellent driver who never got in a car accident. But don’t you love me so much more now that you know I accidentally rammed the car halfway through the garage when I was 18?