friday five

1. explain why you started to journal/blog.
i have been journaling since i could write. i remember getting a small pink and white journal with a plastic lock for my 6th birthday. i kept journals of many sorts througout my childhood and teens.

i started having an online journal in january 2000. back then, i was freshly in love and evan was on his way back to australia. triggered by an article on journalling online somewhere, i thought having something online just for him, a diary of sorts, would be a good way to communicate and keep in touch.
i started a diary on the now very different opendiary. what was intended to be solely for evan took on a life of its own not long after it started, though. strangely enough, he never really felt good about reading what i wrote online. - while i gave him permission to read my online diary, actually reading it, he always felt like an intruder. also, he thinks my voice online is different from what i am like in real life (this being in english and all). his feelings about that haven't changed, but in general he doesn't mind me writing online, as long as some privacy remains.

i have journalled in one way or another for much of my life and am glad that i chronicled some rough times in my life. it's strange and interesting to read what i wrote at 16, and see someone who is very very different from me today. it's similar with what i wrote that first year i journalled online: i was very depressed, and a lot younger than i am today, and reading it, i feel sad for me back then.
in general, writing online felt -and still feels, most of the time- a lot better to me than writing and whining for my harddrive.
i guess it's just the general human urge to chronicle life at work here.
it's difficult to put it into words: i still write for myself, but the semi-publicity this has, has helped me figure things out, too. i like the strange medium of a public journal, and can't really say why.

my writing online has changed over the years, and has changed with the publishing method i use, too. while at opendiary, i wrote long, whiny, sad journal type entries. since blogger, there's been lots more published, in smaller bits, with some blog typical stuff & linkage.


2. do people you interact with day to day or family members know about your journal/blog? why or why not?
i am not aware of real life people regularly reading this. my partner doesn't read my online stuff for aforementioned reasons, and tina only reads this occasionally, don't you? i have a sneaking suspicion my therapist might have searched it out. have you?
my family doesn't know about this, because it is none of their business.

3. do you have a theme for your journal/blog?
as in a "motto"? i recently revamped a little and picked a new title for my diary/journal/blog/thing: "i defy gravity".
it's derived from one of my favourite songs, "back to you" by melbourne band something for kate:

for i have a compass
i watch the sundial
and i defy gravity just to get myself
back to you

while i quite obviously can not defy gravity, i indeed do the impossible to be with the man that i love, to have this relationship and to make it work. this song has been with the two of us ever since we met, and last year, he gave me a compass as a present, so that i can always find my way back to him.
i picked this as my motto, not just because i like the song, but also because that "defying gravity" stuff i think i should do in other areas of my life, too: attempt the unthinkable. i haven't tried enough lately, i think.
apart from headstands, that is.

4. what direction would you like to have your journal/blog go in over the next year?
however, considering what's ahead for me this year though, improving/overhauling my blog/journal (i.e. move to mt, own domain, better layout) is very low on my list of priorities. there is just too much big change ahead, that i can not be bothered with even more changes, no matter how small.

5. pimp five of your favorite journals/blogs.
five? nah. can't do that. simple reason is that "favourite" is a weird term to use to label someone's personal writing and life chronicling.
it's strange enough to bookmark other's lives, but picking faves just doesn't feel right to me.
so please check out that sidebar instead. they aren't faves: that's all recommended reading instead.