It Was Ten Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today I created my first blog. It was at a site called diaryland.com, which still exists, and I think that I did it because some of my friends from the Sloan message board had done it, and I thought that it sounded like a cool idea. I also thought that it wouldn't last: all previous attempts at keeping any kind of written record of my life had failed. The longest of any of my other efforts was three months--the three months that I spent in France when I was fifteen, where I wrote almost every day because I had nothing else to do most of the time.

My life has changed a lot in ten years. When I first started blogging, I was still in high school, and had no idea that I had six+ years of university ahead of me. I had gone on only a single date, and I had never been kissed. I'd never broken someone's heart, nor had mine broken. Of the three women who will be standing up with me at my wedding in October (that aren't related to me), I had only met one of them: we met in passing at a party when she was dating one of my friends. She wore a beautiful striped wool sweater, but I didn't like her very much--she seemed very haughty. I had not yet started working at The Historic Site Which Shall Not Be Named. I wanted to be a high school teacher. I had red hair, cut in a very bland, chin length bob. I didn't think of myself as a feminist. I'd never seen Neil Finn nor Crowded House in concert. I'd never been to Scotland, nor British Columbia. I'd never given a lecture to 200 people--hell, I could scarcely bring myself to ask for help in a store. I'd never directed a play, or written for a newspaper. I'd only read The Handmaid's Tale three or so times. ICQ was my main form of chat. I didn't know how to drive. I hadn't knit since I was seven or eight. There were still two more Star Wars movies to come (and I hadn't lost all hope that the remaining two wouldn't suck).

Here's a quotation from that first blog entry:

well, this is my first "official" entry, the maiden voyage of this, so to speak. god only knows that I suck beyond words at actually keeping written records of my life. which I suppose is unusual considering how much time I spend over-analyzing every last detail of my life like the english geek that I am. but again, I digress, and on some level I hope that people will be interested in reading what I have to say.

I'm at a weird time in my life right now. The school year has two short weeks left (two short weeks in which I need to do an entire history independent study course...stupid me) and I can't believe that high school will be over, forever. I'm both sad and glad about it; I have a lot of memories I wouldn't trade for the world but I also have a lot of regrets about various things. Though certainly nothing I can't live with. I'm going to be cutting a lot of ties in the next few months and I'm worried about whether or not I can handle it all.

I was apparently not really into proper capitalization at that time, but I did (and I do) like my semi-colons.

Reading over some of the old entries has been quite interesting. That blog only lasted for about four years; the last two years overlapped with this blog, back when it used to be entirely academic. I didn't know it at the time, of course, but the four years of the other blog are the four years that I dated my other boyfriends; I made the transition here a permanent one at around the same time that Mat and I started seeing each other. The early entries are total crap: high school is over, blah blah blah sadcakes; I have a lot of work to do; I'm looking forward to university but really sad at the same time. I do develop a narrative voice surprisingly early, though. Not necessarily a voice that I'm all that proud of, mind you, but one that's relatively clear.

It's also interesting to look back over those entries and try to remember the things that I didn't write about. There are often references to things that happened that I simply have no recollection of, and sometimes there's even subtext about things that I didn't realize was happening at the time. If I only knew then what I know now...

I don't know where I'll be ten years from now. I'd be pretty surprised if I was still blogging--but then, if you'd told me ten years ago that I'd be writing this entry today, I wouldn't have believed you. So here's to the next ten years: may they be as varied and as educational as the last ten.