Going Through The Archives

I’ve been spending so much time in the archives the past couple of days that I forget I haven’t been writing much; I’m reading so much of my own stuff that I feel I must have been updating seven times a day. Part of me feels I should be preserving the old entries in their pristine state, dead links and spelling mistakes and all, but another part of me is absolutely unable to let well enough alone. I can barely handle not actually going back to change the content of the entries but so far I am resisting temptation. Barely.

I’ve gotten up to 2004 now and going through is affecting me a little differently than 2002 or 2003 did. With those I’d sort of roll my eyes at myself as I was fixing stuff and occasionally notice how much has changed or how silly I can be sometimes, but that was about it. That time feels really far away…I know I wrote those entries, but I have a hard time understanding that I did, the implications of my new shiny domain name notwithstanding. I was marking time, I think, during those years, and nothing I did seemed to matter very much. I don’t even remember a lot of that stuff anymore.

2004, though. I read stuff like this and this and I shook my head and thought, “Here we go.” I realized I’ve been thinking about going abroad since this time two years ago. I read this and this and there was no way I could have known what would happen in Italy, what I would do there, but there I am writing about it anyway.

It’s weird that I’ve moved again since then and that I’ll be moving some more this summer, under very different circumstances than that first time. It’s amazing to me now to recall how sad I was to leave that crappy apartment in Lake City, how it seemed like it would always be strange. 2004 is close enough that I can still recall how miserable I was but far enough away now that I can really see how everything started changing.

Some things are the same in 2006 as they were in 2004: I still go to work every day, I still eat a lot of Brussels sprouts in the winter and a lot of popsicles in the summer, my hair continues to be a source of stress. I still really like all my friends a lot and I still like to read. I still get annoyed with myself on a fairly regular basis but I feel like I’m in a generally good place in my life and I generally like who I am most of the time. I’m basically the same person I was when I started this journal, good and bad. What’s changed, and what’s so odd to watch unfold entry by entry, is the power I now feel to change my life, to do what I want to do, which is the best I can with the sense I have. It’s obvious to me now I didn’t feel that way in 2004. Life changed anyway and I guess I did the only thing I could: tried to change with it, tried to really choose. To witness that time happen again, even on the screen, makes me a little dizzy.