It looks like the majority of users on this site have flocked here with the permanent shutdown of OpenDiary. At least we have somewhere else to go?
I came to OpenDiary in the summer of 2007, fresh off a trip to Europe that changed my life and wading into what became a long-lasting, crippling unhappiness. I was thirteen. In those early posts, other writers turned into regularly readers on my entries. Those readers turned into friendships and confidants build on an honesty and rawness I never expected.
Over the years, I documented my entire life in my OpenDiary. It offered a privacy blogging didn't, a community that a paper journal didn't, and perhaps most importantly, it was a constant in my life. I'm twenty now. OpenDiary offered me comfort, self-reflection and growth throughout the most tumultuous years of anyone's life, the teenage years.
There were many months-long periods without any updates, but I always found myself back at OpenDiary. Last summer, I finally decided to download seven years' worth of writing onto pdf, and rereading the struggles and victories and everydays of my past was an incredible experience. More than anything else, OpenDiary catalogued my life for seven years in all of its unfiltered angst and triumph.
Unfortunately, the site, with its many glitches, stopped working for me back in November, much to my dismay (for those of you friends from OD who didn't know why I dropped off for three months). Between the freeze on my account and the general craziness of my second year of college, journaling fell off my list of priorities. It seems that happens to me a lot, I realized as I grew older, with apparently less things to say. But journaling is something that should always be a priority for me. Without the chance for self-reflection and the process of my own thoughts on paper (screen?), I'm less of who I am.
OpenDiary gave me a safe space for my development both as a writer and as a person. Perhaps without the audience of OpenDiary, my writing would have been much neglected over the years. With OpenDiary, I have now found myself pursuing a degree in journalism and English, a staff writer at my college newspaper, and an unshakable sense of self.
When the shutdown of OD was announced, I had already, in a way, let it go. The people, whom after so long are near and dear to my heart, have long been connected to me via Facebook or Tumblr or email. After seven years, we've all grown up into adults now. I really hope we're able to visit one another in the real world someday soon. I think we owe it to all of us. I mean, they know me better than some of my oldest friends in real life. It's crazy how the world works, isn't it?
So, seven years later, here I am. I've got a past life chronicled in a failed blogging site, a lot of ambition, and a passion for writing. I decided to keep my OpenDiary username, anythingbutlove, for prosperity and sentimental sake. I don't think I will ever truly leave OpenDiary--I would have stayed there until the end of days--but perhaps OpenDiary doesn't need the confines of itself to exist. At least I'm hoping so.
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