Esoteric Bowl

This month marks the one year period of my maintaining an online journal. A blog-birthday of sorts, or to borrow a phrase from a friend, a journalversary. It feels as if so much more time has passed than just a single year since I started this journal.

I click on the archives to make sure I’m not reading the date wrong. It would not be the first time I have made a mistake with dates. A few years back, I went almost an entire year thinking that I was one year older than I actually was. When I did finally realize that my calculation was off, it felt like I had gained a year.

So I went to the archives to make sure. With the exception of those occassions where I am searching for a particular post from the past, I don’t visit my archives. In the whole process of maintaining an online journal, the gathering of thoughts and expressing those thoughts creatively has always been where my interest lies. Once the thoughts have been written and posted, it is somewhat of a release for me as the thoughts are sent out into the vapors.

On this particular visit to the archives, I read the entries that have been posted from day one. As I read month after month of entries, I often found myself feeling like I was reading an entry for the first time, as if the journal belonged to someone else. Other times while I read, I felt a feeling of nostalgia as if I was looking at old photographs, reliving the moments in my head and remembering the thoughts and events that have since passed. There were also certain entries that left me with an uncomfortable feeling, as if I was listening to my recorded voice for the first time.

I know some people delete their archives after a certain period has passed. I think I would find that difficult to do. I have very little in my life that reminds me of the past, a few photos and a couple of momentos. But there is a part of me that values these archives. In one sense, they are a reflection of who I am at a particular period of time. On some occassions
that reflection is a little more clear than at other times, but it is still me. Even a brief entry with a link in some small way shows what I found interesting enough to post at the time.

I undertand the loss some must feel when their archives have mistakenly been deleted. While I was reading through my entries, I noticed that some posts were missing. I’m unsure why these posts didn’t make it over to the transfer of my current journal, but I am glad now that I didn’t delete my original journal at Blogger.

So one year of online journaling. Sometimes I think that I will always maintain an online journal, while other times I am not so sure. One day and one entry at a time, give or take.