So over the course of the past month, I tried to access my old on-line diary to write a new entry or to read an old one. I have clicked the OpenDiary.com link on my toolbar and nothing has happened. OpenDiary was notorious for issues loading, so I figured that it was a temporary issue, ignored it, and wrote an entry in a Word Document to upload later.
Today, I wanted to reread some entries from the beginning because I was sharing memories with my soon-to-be thirteen year old sister. She was crushing on older YouTube Minecraft sensations, and I wanted to show her my early entries about my unattainable crushes. When I was denied access, I searched Google to find that the entire website has been completely deleted. Fourteen years worth of journaling, poetry, and interactions with friends and peers is irreparably gone.
Years of experience coping with loss help me to ease my grip when it strikes. I have lost my sister, my dad, my aunt. I have lost pets, years of photos, relationships, jewelry, cars, favorite clothes, cds. I might beat myself up a little when the loss is my fault, but usually I surrender to the natural ebb and flow of life. I let go because I know that nothing is forever.
And I know that now, but the pang of grief is still there. My memory isn’t as good as it used to be – maybe because I don’t relish in hours of rereading detailed descriptions of the past.
OpenDiary was a place that preceded social networking as we know it today. My first diary was on the sister site TeenOpenDiary.com or “TOD” as we liked to call it. I wrote entries about my daily life. I wrote poetry. I received feedback from strangers. My friends made diaries and TOD became the place to start petty peer conflicts or to give different points of view about the same experiences. It was a valuable lesson in perspective.
On TOD, I met one of my best friends who lived in Ontario. We shared our poetry with one another and commented about each others’ lives. I visited her when I was just fourteen years old. We sent each other letters with poorly drawn likenesses of ourselves, odes and poems, and details of our days in school.
Adult life takes so much brain power that my intense nostalgia has relented. My tendency to cling to the past prohibited growth, so I welcome change in my life these days.
I will make peace with this loss, but it is heartbreaking that I never saved some of the creative writing. Nonetheless, the start of this blog couldn’t have been more timely. This can be a fresh start for me, allowing me to let go of my childish beginnings.