It’s been a little over five years since I started blogging here in earnest. I thought this would be a simple extension of the journal-writing I’d done off and on for years. The main difference, I supposed, was that I would be less likely to write about the minutiae of my life, that I would omit mundane details in an effort to keep things interesting. I imagined my audience would be small and obscure. 1,760-odd posts later and my readership is indeed small, though bigger than I imagined, and not nearly as obscure. I know many of my readers, and many friends and relatives keep tabs on me through this blog. Which is great, only it gives the lie to my early naïveté. Writing here is not the same as writing in a private journal, not by a long shot. I’m no longer worried about being boring. My primary worry is being too honest. My parents read this blog. Nuff said? My years of writing here have overlapped Katrina, a big story arc which I am glad to make public. But there are plenty of personal details that I won’t put here, and generally speaking those are the juiciest parts. Sex, drugs and acrimony. Get the picture?
Once I started this blogging business, I stopped keeping a private journal, but I’m realizing the limitations of this approach. So now I’ve started journaling again. I will keep blogging too, but perhaps less frequently. For quite some time I’ve aimed to post here daily. But there are only so many hours in a day, and my current challenge is to find a way to juggle my several writing projects, to discern what goes where, and find other means to give vent to the peculiar pressures that drive me on.
Speaking of anniversaries, it’s been ten years since Xy and I moved to New Orleans. Most of those years were pre-Katrina. It sure doesn’t feel that way, though. These post-Katrina years seem heavier, they weigh on me more, and they tip the balance toward the present. I know Xy and I lived here for six years before the storm, before the flood, but those years seem so distant and faint. The damage to the city feels like damage to my brain. But that, after all, is why I keep a journal, and a blog.
Here’s to another five, and another ten.