I wrote my first blog post here, exactly six years ago. Well, that's a fucking long time. In the online world, it feels like a quarter of a century. I was thinking about it a few minutes ago, trying to remember every little detail I could - 8:18am, January 3, 2001, the room I was sitting in, that old Dell laptop I was using. Does any of it matter?
Google Calendar stores every appointment I've made since 1997. Entourage stores nearly every email. The Documents folder on my MacBook Pro contains nearly every word I've written and most of the stuff I've wanted to save. With just a bit of effort, I can step backward and reconstruct January 3, 2001. Or any other day, for that matter.
But, what of it? As I go on, the trail of data behind me gets longer and longer. The obsessive-compulsive demon within me whispers to me that it's valuable, important, a vital thread that connects me to my thoughts, experiences, surroundings. I've trusted that voice for a long time. But something else tells me that there are moments to begin anew.
This is one of them. So, the blog returns. The many hundreds of posts from version 1 are deleted. I haven't erased the past; it lives on inside me. But I have done something that feels exciting, and quite distinctly American: I've erased the past and started over.
That's pretty fucking fresh, if you ask me.
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