Everyone used to write, but then they don’t

From 2000 to 2004, writing was the thing.

Everyone had some kind of diary. A livejournal. A xanga. Maybe a scribble.nu Then all the various forms. Deadjournal. etc. I joined all of them, because I wanted to express myself. I joined message boards, communities to meet “like-minded” people. In my lonely way, I wanted to find others who were lonely as I was…and used the Internet to express themselves in the way they could not in person.

It was a safe time. We could yell into the ether and these digital voices—us. We would empathize, share a story or two. A “me too”. A witty comment. It was our obligation when we read other blogs. Not because we had to, but because wanted to. My life was surrounded by it then, so appropriate for my own coming-of-age in entering the world.

But then it all started fading away. But I never gave it up. I went through my blogroll today to clean up the links. More than half of them didn’t work. Leading to empty domains, stolen by a foreign country and indundated with ads. The other half were links of blogs not updated for years. Only one them was active. She had become a blogger in her own right—sometimes submitting to the current blog culture of promoting products and attending blogger events. I used to love her posts about her life—her struggles with boyfriends and living so far away from her family.

I was the only one I knew that continually plugged away at my blog. Albeit not every day as I used to. But I still write with the same energy. Although now unlike my early twenties, I don’t publicize. I don’t have the links on my profiles—facebook or twitter. (Although it was on twitter for a very long time.) It’s a game that I play with myself.

I can’t help but write. A habit that is more than a decade old. Plugging, posting…writing in type late at night, by myself. A solitary activity. I love it too much to give it up.

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