Where it all began. in Life

As I’m left facing the imenent closure of a place I called home for my writings since 2003 I’m left looking back. Although I’ve fallen out of habit there, when I got the text from a friend that they were closing it impacted me in ways that I wasn’t expecting.

When I look back, 2003 doesn’t seem like that long ago but I was 18 going on 15 mentally and it’s not often a time I look back on with fondness.

Yes, sure, there are a lot of good times from back then but there’s also a lot of rough edges, as many of us had in our teens and twenties. But in general I don’t like who I was back then. I didn’t like who I was back then even when I was living in the skin of that time and since then I’ve grown into someone that a lot of people respect and someone that I’ve come to love and respect. As I’m in my mid-thirties, happier than I’ve ever been, there’s always a swell of pride when someone says “I never thought you’d turn out like this!” or “If someone told me you’d turn out like this I would have laughed at them” the latter of the two being a deceased relative and ‘boyfriend’ of the lady I’ve named my first child after.

It’s really daunting to look that far back, but on the topic of journaling specifically it takes two forms. I first started keeping a journal as a therapy by a psychologist who suggested that I do it as a way to let out my anger and let out my anger I did. But hilariously enough I always went back and scratched out the swear words after I had calmed down a bit.

The main focus however, is what started me into online journaling. I come from a site called DigitalExpressions.nu I first wrote there when I was, you guessed it, 18 going on 15 and there was a girl in a chatroom that I frequented (Called Broken Hearts on Teenchat.com - I had been using that site since I was about 13-17 if I recall correctly) her screen name was NightEyes and she changed my life by introducing me not only to writing intelligently and written expression in general but she introduced me to the power of a community. A community that would live and die together, struggle and succeed together. I think a lot of us found that site as teenagers and now a lot of us are parents, with out own kids an an ever uncertain world.

There is an uncertainty I don’t want to deal with however, and that’s the uncertainty of what will happen to the people we built that community with, for almost 2 decades.

We’ve all fallen victim (and been the one with blood on our hands) for letting relationships fade away into nothing. To slip into the abyss of time and it seems like this that carried us, together, for 2 decades deserves better.

Maybe this site will welcome us with the same comfort and security that DE held. Only time will tell.