TBD.

So I've been thinking. Thinking about life and stuff. And blogging. Especially the older parts of this blog. And I'm not sure, because of them, whether I really want to continue this blog.

Long story short, and with several personal details omitted, I've changed a lot since I began this blog. Like, a lot. Seriously a lot. And I'm not sure where that person who I used to be fits in with who I am now. Should I be ashamed of or embarrassed by that person? Is it unhealthfully dissociative to even think of him as someone separate?

This wouldn't be the first time I've broken off and started a new blog. When I was even younger and arguably even crazier, I had a blog that was full of drama and bad mischief and, eventually, far too much alcohol as well. That person--the one who couldn't respect anyone's privacy, who flew into rages and depressions, who held nothing back even at the expense of others but especially to get attention--is someone with whom I certainly feel a distance and, I think, a healthy one.

But how different is the person who started this blog? I'd like to think that, on the whole, he was generally more well-meaning and less unkind. But he was still nuts, still desperate for attention, still not entirely ready for "prime time."

In the few years I've been away from this blog, I've learned a lot about respect and a lot about, shall we say, restraint.

I'm still not sure yet whether I'll continue this blog. I feel a lot clearer, after writing this post, about why I might or might not want to. But at least keep these reflections in mind, dear reader, if anything from before 2017 strikes you as especially weird. Also, if its grammar is terrible, recall that I only just formally became an editor and, therefore, accountable for such things.

Comments

Other things that might interest you...

On aging, and fear.

To begin with, I’m not sure you’re aware of it, but I’m middle aged. Oh? What gave it away? Using a blog as my primary literary medium?¹ Hm. But in fact, the APA defines 35 years as the end of “young adulthood.” Yeah. I found out via some shitpost on twitter when I was already 35, so it didn’t sit well with me then either. But my worries about aging began much sooner than that. See, even in my 20s, I feared I’d been wasting my life. I’d struggled with school and life and everything since graduating high school, arguably sooner, and nothing seemed to be going anywhere meaningful . I felt I had a limited social life, a dead-end job, no money, no great travels, a limping love life; I was, generally, a loser, wasting away... There were none of the usual hallmarks of success or happiness. And that scared me. Would my life have been worth it if I continued in this direction? Would it have been a “life well lived” by the end? So, this is my existential struggle. Even now, as I lurch ever nea...

Changing lanes.

I was driving home in some traffic last night when I drifted, in my mind, a long way back (about 20 years) to high school. I was caught in one of those periodic traffic slowdowns as I floated back; you know, those waves of congestion that seem to pass backward through the columns of cars in each lane. (I've heard they start because someone switches lanes, and in response, a rippling emergent slowness travels backward and outward as the cars behind it accommodate the change, one by one.) What drew me back to those younger days was that, back in high school, similar phenomena of congestion took place in the halls between classes, when eddies of young humans would get caught in and around those clumps of those chatting by lockers or retrieving books. Occasionally, backups would occur when groups of people got caught in these eddies, or collided with other groups by the lockers, and slowdowns would ripple back from there. Maybe it's not exactly the same, but as I drove it seemed si...

Oatmeal is tasty.

{slurps up berry-oatmeal-deliciousness} Indeed. I need to work on rebuilding a morning schedule. I can be zombie-like enough that I'll waste a perfectly good morning, and have often slept through many. And, really, it's such a useful time of day.

palmerpink

Search This Blog