Oh What A Night, Why'd It Take So Long To See The Light, Seemed So Wrong, But Now It Seems So Right

--"December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)", The Four Seasons

Four hundred ninety-nine posts ago, on the night of Sept 7th, 2004 I wrote this, The Wind Blew All Around Me. It wasn't a terribly auspicious beginning because I really hadn't planned on writing anything but updates on what I was working on, what I did on any particular day, and really hadn't planned on divulging anything particularly personal or memorable. Originally, this site was supposed to be nothing more than a glorified account of my days. Originally, I wasn't planning to update it quite as much as I do. I tried to limit myself to brief bits of entertainment news with occasional forays into what was going on in my head. I didn't want this to be terribly confessional because, I don't know, I didn't think my life was anything anybody would really have an interest in and, quite frankly, most of the time when I write something deeply emotional it only serves to depress me.

However, even on that night, re-reading that flimsy excuse for a first post--what with its reliance of notes of my progress on my great unfinished novel, The Carisa Meridian and its totally practiced tone of ironic indifference--I had some idea that this space would turn into a gallery of my life and the lives of everyone I've come across. Why else would I commit to paper a line like,

Plus, I have seen first-hand the power a blog has to gain feedback, both positive and negative, about one's own course in life so I suppose I shall be utilizing this personal space of mine to garner such reviews about my own life, about my own course, and I guess my own well-being.

if not to validate the existence of my blog as a means to express my experience? I guess I was wrong in ever believing that I could leave such valuable real estate devoid of the forlorn and wistful anecdotes from my life that so overwhelm my everyday conversations.

I honestly tried to keep this site fluffy and light in the beginning, but people can't help but write what they know. And what I know is how to self-analyze and beat a dead horse. I also know a thing or too about trying to learn lessons from every memory one makes, even if that memory only lasted for an hour or even a minute. As Breanne is fond of saying, I can only be little 'ole me--no more, no less.

I was a different person back in 2004. I was unemployed and probably the loneliest I've ever felt. It was a couple of months after I'd come to the realization that I probably never would be seeing DeAnn again. I mean--we broke up in 2001, but we continued to try to be friends up until April or May of 2004, so in a sense I was just coming off of breaking up with what was a long-standing relationship for me. The unemployment didn't help. But mostly I was miserable because I felt like I had no one who really wanted to listen to me, including me. I was just tired of being the person who tended to drive people away and it was all hitting me how much I had screwed up my life by isolating myself from the people I cared about the most. It wasn't a coincidence that I turned to writing a blog to work out my problems because a lot of my problems stemmed from things I originally wrote down.

I never thought those first posts would amount to much. Frankly, I thought I would get bored of writing blogs within a few months. I didn't think I had a lot to say or maybe I just never thought I would amount to much.

Yet here I am, typing out my five hundreth post, which I daresay is quite an accomplishment. I never thought I had it in me--certainly not the way I was feeling that night. Sure, I might be cheating because a good twenty to twenty-five percent of them were actually written by Breanne, but five hundred is five hundred, and I deserve the lion's share of the credit if credit is to be handed out. I know not everything I've written has been of quality and that I've probably allowed more of my secrets out than I probably should have, but I think it's been an interesting ride and I know I've learned a few things from then till now.

I think I'm in a happier place.

I don't feel so alone now.

But most of all, I think a lot of the stuff I write now has some value for others. I've stopped thinking that what I write here has no value except for me because over the years I've received e-mails from various friends and acquaintances stating that something they've read here has impacted their lives--be it Sammie quoting one of my posts and utilizing it as a wallpaper for her computer or be it Kerri Ray using my eulogy for Jennifer as the basis for her own eulogy for a friend of hers. I can't say all my posts have been homeruns like those, but my batting average is pretty solid.

I know without some of those posts I wouldn't have some of the people in my life that I thought I lost forever. I would have never found out what happened to that girl I spent six hours with at Disney World once. I would have never found out what happened to my best friend from high school. And I daresay I very well could have lost track of the person who continues to mean the most to me without this site. So what if it's caused me to miss precious hours of sleep? So what if it's caused me to get into my fair share of fights over topics apparently weren't safe to discuss? So what if people have taken what they've read on here and used it to their advantage?

Five hundred posts for almost three years of having the ability to say what I wanted to say and write what I wanted to write?

All in all, I think it's been a fair exchange.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers