I could start this out with a whole lot of stuff about OH I HAVEN’T WRITTEN HERE IN FOREVER and HERE’S HOW THINGS HAVE BEEN GOING or whatever, but it’s 2010, not 2002, and this is my website, so I won’t bother making excuses.*

What I will say is this: I’m not even remotely the same person who started this site in February of 2000. I was 21 years old, living in a tiny Houston apartment, and working full-time as a web designer, totally unaware that the dot-com bubble would burst in just a few short months. When it did, I went back to college, majored in English, and became obsessed with the personal web, all of which informed lots, if not most, of my writing on this site.

I still live in an apartment, and I’m a web designer again, but that’s where the similarities end (oh, and my hair remains awesome). A few months ago, an online friend (acquaintance? person I know? you get it) of mine** wrote this on his private site:

All those words, nearly forgotten and willfully unremembered, that I find from time to time in email searches and old misnamed text files, they read like lies, because I no longer believe in the world they describe. I no longer believe that I ever believed in it, only that I wanted to, and tried, and failed. It’s just a muscle that moves blood for a while. There is nothing to break.

Replace “email searches and old misnamed text files” with “my bluishorange archives,” and you’ve got exactly how I feel about this site. I’m not comfortable with reading my old writing, nor am I comfortable with exploring the depths of my own psyche the way I used to. It’s too difficult, too painful, too something.

But make no mistake, I’m not filled with regret or anything. I’m not going to say, “Oh, I had such high hopes for myself!” or “What happened to me?” Things are fine here. It’s just that reading my old writing is like watching a documentary about a problem that doesn’t exist anymore–clearly this person feels very strongly about these things, but, uh, what?

Eh, maybe I’ll appreciate having 2700 essays about my 20’s when I’m old.

Anyhow, thanks to my friend/online acquaintance/fellow internet road warrior Ariel, I’ve found this journal project called Radvent. Each day in December*** there’s a writing prompt, and I’m going to see if I can follow them this month (cue laugh track). I could use some reminders that things in my life are better now, MUCH, better, than they used to be, and I think this might help. Here’s the first prompt:

What were you doing five years ago today? As the holiday season began? Where were you? Who were you with? What did you want? What did you have?

Oh, things were not good in late 2005. I was unemployed, kind of depressed, and making my living selling jewelry and vintage clothes on the internet and doing contract web work. I’d just moved to Austin and hadn’t met many people yet, so I rarely left the apartment I shared with my boyfriend at the time. Besides him, Maude was my best friend. Here she is post-Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house in 2005:

Maude is a most excellent friend, but I definitely needed (and wanted!) to get out more and meet people. I was, however, too busy berating myself for not being more awesome.

The bright side of 2005: it was when I really started to get into sewing. Said boyfriend got me a vintage sewing machine for my birthday that year, and I taught myself all kinds of things pretty quickly. So, when I was at home all day and all night for weeks on end, at least I had something to do.

*I will tell you that I do lots of posting on my tumblr these days, as well as over on my craft site, I Could Make That.

**Hey online friend person, do you want me to credit you for writing that? Didn’t know if I should since it’s on a private site.

***You know how I feel about religion (and, consequently, Advent), but whatevs; we can focus on the Rad part instead.

(Hey, look, the 10th-anniversary-of-Bluishorange post I did in February hasn’t fallen off the main page yet!)