...and the word was LiveJournal. Back In The Day everyone I knew used LiveJournal. Attempting (as always) to keep up with the cool kids, I joined up too and had many happy years of writing my own waffle and reading the waffle of others. Eventually FaceBook tempted me away (hey cool kids! Please let me play with you!). and my old Journal was left to lurk, neglected, in a teeny tiny crevice of the internet.
On a dreary day at work a few months ago something made me log in to LJ and skim through my old posts. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading them, despite (or perhaps due to) having almost no memory of anything I appear to have done between 2002 and 2010 until I read about it in my own words.. Which is I suppose the point of a journal. A point that will become more important going forward given that, at 46, I can hardly remember how to dress myself of a morning without having to Google 'Buttons and How to Use Them".
Recently, prompted by Jem and endless self help articles in women's magazines (read while at the dentist or the hairdressers. Honest), informing me that I would find it cathartic and clarifying, I decided I wanted to keep journal again.
So I went back to LJ with the intention of picking up where I left off (give or take 5 years). But I didn't. LJ felt liked the old me, I was a different person in a different place when I wrote that journal and I wanted to start fresh.
So I went back to LJ with the intention of picking up where I left off (give or take 5 years). But I didn't. LJ felt liked the old me, I was a different person in a different place when I wrote that journal and I wanted to start fresh.
I still wanted to keep my old journal though. I really wanted something tangible, Then a week or so ago I found a website that downloads your LJ posts and puts them in the form or a PDF 'book'. So I did just that and was astonished to discover that I had written 763 A4 pages of drivel in those 13 years. That's a novel. A creatively spelled, randomly punctuated and deeply drivelly one I grant you but still, that's a shit load of words I managed to string together.
One of these days I will sit down and read it from the beginning. I know the entries will often be full of whining and self pity and fury, but I hope there will also be enough silly stories and interesting (to me) accounts of places I went and people I saw, to make me smile. But for now I'm going to concentrate on starting a new journal, or rather a new Blog. I hope I can find another 763 pages of drivel to fill it with. Here's the first.
