recycled words
posted July 17, 2005 at 07:18 pm

Appallingly, in the past year and four months since I "relaunched" this site, I've added only 37 entries (including this one) and seven of those never saw the light of day because they're still in draft mode. Thirty entries in sixteen months, that's not even two whole entries a month. How pathetic. It's a wonder anyone bothers stopping by anymore.

In comparison, back when I started this site in 2001 as a journal, I had 149 entries during the initial sixteen months (an average of about nine per month), but after that point, things started to taper off and I only added 38 more entries before shutting it down in early 2004. Why? Because people actually started to read what I was writing.

The thing most people who have websites want is visitors. For me, the more aware I became of how many people were actually reading my site, the more it killed my desire to write anything at all here. I became too self-conscious about what I was putting into public view. I developed personal and then professional relationships with people who I met as a result of having the site in the first place, and I realized that maybe there were some things they just did not need to know (like my innermost thoughts, which are sometimes pretty dark; or details of my sex life).

Now, while there is actually some new personal stuff I could talk about which would probably make for some interesting reading, I just can't bring myself to share on that level anymore. I know damn well it might be highly entertaining (at least, I know the lascivious among you would enjoy it), but so far, I've not been able to shake off the sense that I need to keep most of it private.

And yes, maybe I could just find something less complicated to talk about, but my writing never seems as inspired to me as it does when I'm talking about something which is intensely personal. I'm not a blogger - I'm a journaler. It's all about me, me, me. :)

Over the many years of my life (oh my hell, there have been almost 40 of them now), I have always turned to writing during stressful emotional times, or as an attempt to make some sort of sense out of various negative events. (I'm definitely one of those writers who feels less inspired when life is humming happily along.) Unfortunately, I've done a horrible job over those years of keeping track of my writing in an organized fashion, meaning I have no cohesive record to go back and reflect upon at will.

But, lo and behold, through the great power given to me via a hosting account and Movable Type, I do have something preserved. Over the past few weeks, I've spent time reading through those 185 journal entries, from 2001 to 2004, sometimes blushing, sometimes laughing, sometimes hanging my head in shame. Most certainly this is not the first time I've read them this way, because I always enjoy the new insights I gain from looking back at myself and the things that were happening to me during that period.

But on this occasion, I did something a tad bit different (which some of you more eagle-eyed readers may have already noticed a week or so ago in the sidebar links): I read the entries with an eye to bringing some of them back into the public view. From the initial 185, I have chosen 95 entries to place in a special retrospective section of this site.

Recycled words are still worth reading, and maybe some of you might like what you find there. If not, oh well - keep checking back. Who knows, maybe I'll throw off my chains of self-restraint and tell you about the wild orgy I had last weekend.

Heh. Yeah, dream on. ;)