Dear Blog,
On Wednesday you turned 15. Right on!
It mostly started out of boredom as the About page says, but it was a lot about loneliness. Before the blog I thought if I were ever to share the thoughts and fears stewing away in my brain, a giant trap door would open up beneath me and my friends would stand over it and wave, Good riddance, weirdo!
But of course writing and reading blogs led to finding lots of cool “me too” people, and the happy realisation most of us feel like weirdos much of the time.
Some days I get so overwhelmed by the internet. The noisier it gets the more lonely it can feel. I’m constantly questioning the point of this exercise and/or clamming up in anticipation of negative feedback. But whenever I find the nerve to venture out of the cave and speak from the heart, I never regret it.
Actually I just had a thought, and it’s nearly midnight so it’s not going to make much sense. The internet is so huge now that it’s almost the same as it was in 2000. Back then there wasn’t a large amount of blogs so you felt free to really blurt out your guts. But now there’s SO many blogs, plus endless social networky things, you can hide in plain sight. There is room for everyone. You can find your own quiet corner and blurt away. Ahh I feel better now.
I can picture that May 2000 office cubicle so clearly. The now-tiny monitors, the communal fridge, the empty desks vacated by Y2K consultants after the world did not explode on January 1st. I’d surreptitiously poke around on Blogger.com with no idea of the world about to open up and all the wonderful people I’d meet. And the life-changing things that would enter my orbit over the next decade and a half…
Dry shampoo!
Green & Blacks chocolate!
4-wheel spinner suitcases!
Properly-fitted bras!
Scandinavian crime dramas!
Jon Hamm!
Thanks gazillions for reading, good people.
* I know it doesn’t say What’s New Pussycat? on the blog header anymore but that’s what it’ll always be in my brain.
