Looking back

A few days ago, my mom told me she found a box of my old journals in the back of the basement and asked me what I wanted her to do with it. My first thought was, "burn it."

But in the back of my mind I thought I might someday regret that, so I took it and stored it away. But before storing it I decided to open it and flip through one journal, nervous about what embarrassing memory it might hold. Turned out it was sort of amusing. The one entry I read was about meeting a guy who I'm still friends with and I kind of enjoyed reading about it and my first impressions of him.

But after reading that one entry, I put the journal back, sealed up the box and put it in a safe place. My old journals are a mine field of dating experiences - good and bad, embarrassing and hilarious, tender and painful, and so on and so forth. Maybe in 50 years I'll be ready to look back and laugh but I am nowhere near ready for that yet. At best, these old journal entries range from semi-amusing to painfully amusing.

The reason I mention this is because I've been going through old blog posts and labeling them, as I mentioned the other day. It's been interesting to look back. To me it's obvious that I write most posts and publish them immediately after writing them without waiting, rereading, and revising later. How else can you explain all the posts I wrote about Snuggies and the swine flu? My main thought when I was reading through past entries was, "this blog is goofy."

It was weird to look back on entries I haven't read in years (or at least year, singular). I'm not going to say it wasn't somewhat painful at times. In my attempts to never be too negative and to not reveal too much, I have at times focused on some pretty silly stuff in this blog. It is what it is though, and the posts made me laugh at the time.

Tonight I was at a Celtic Festival with Katherine. As I looked around and commented on some of the crazies in attendance, I realized I was there too and said to Katherine, "I love making fun of things I'm actively participating in." I think that statement can be applied to this blog as well. But you're still here so I shouldn't worry too much about it. I'm glad you've stuck with me.

Plus, lest I think it's all fluff, remember the post I wrote about cupcakes in April? Well, tonight I was on NPR's website and on the main page saw an article about the cupcake trend. So there you have it. If it's good enough for NPR, it's good enough for me. Plus, my post was better. (And I'm more humble, obviously.) But that's enough looking back for now. See you in 50 years, previous posts!