I’ve just spent more hours than I should have digging through old, off-line blog posts and I’ve had a minor revelation: as much as I enjoy the process of composing a blog post, I also really love being able to engage with my past self when I reread it years later.
Honestly, I’m a pretty interesting person. I don’t know if it’s that obvious if you meet me face-to-face — I am always afraid I sound like a mumbling fool when I try to talk to people — but when I take the time to organize and compose my thoughts, I really like what I have to say. Of course, I am my own most perfect reader.
Curiously, I don’t have the same relationship with my handwritten journals at all. I rarely try to read old journal entries. If I can get past the untidy scrawl of my handwriting, the words themselves are an uninspired stream-of-consciousness brain dump.
But that doesn’t mean I ever get rid of those old journals, ohnosiree. In the detritus of my estate that my heirs will have to deal with one day will be a truckload of musty, half-filled journals — some gorgeously decorated hardcover books, others ratty spiral notebooks. I hope they don’t hate me for them!
At any rate, today’s revelation reinforces my desire to start blogging more regularly again. It’s not just something for me to enjoy doing now, it’s a gift for my future self.