newgyptian
newgyptian

All quiet on the eastern front: a valediction
March 01, 2007

I long ago decided that this diary had run its course. I decided that about a year ago, when I realized that part of the reason that I kept writing was because at the time it was the only way I had of communicating with someone with whom I very much wanted to communicate, but who apparently no longer wished to communicate with me. So I realized that I was writing for someone I should not be writing for�namely, someone other than myself. I felt a little disgusted with myself yet I kept writing because, well, there were things happening in my life, and I wanted this person to know about them. I thought that maybe if I made him proud or said something really intriguing he would be compelled to contact me.

Of course, that�s not really how it worked out. The thing which I thought would make him proud did get a response from him, but it wasn�t quite the response I had been hoping for. And then eventually, wonder of wonders, communication between us resumed in an extremely periodic yet friendly manner once I stopped writing here as much, and once I stopped caring at all about hearing from him. I don�t know how I didn�t catch on sooner that the less he heard about me from other sources, the more compelled he would be to contact me directly.

The above is just a major example of a trend I noticed here - I was no longer writing just for myself. I wasn't really sure why I kept writing, and I felt vaguely dirty every time I updated, even on those occasions when I did just write something to get it off my chest, or because I felt like expressing a certain thought. I began to grow uncomfortable with the (albeit tiny) readership. I am okay with letting people who don�t know me at all read what I write. I feel a little more uncomfortable with people who do know me, or worse, know the people I most often write about here, reading this.

But that�s not the only reason I�m shutting this thing down.

This year, I rung in a fun and happy New Year with champagne and friends. The next morning�when PG was for some reason making fun of the fact that I have a blog (he�s the only one here who knows I have one, and he finds it amusing, I think, that someone who is so adamant about her privacy �In Real Life� would publish a few intimate details of her life for the world to read)�I declared, �I�m shutting it down, khallas.� To which PG replied, �Yeah, I�ve heard that one before.� And so I told him I really meant it this time, because�

�Because I started this diary nearly three years ago when I was down and depressed and had a lot of time on my hands, because I didn�t have a job and couldn�t muster the energy to work on my masters. It was an outlet. It was a way to motivate myself and track my progress. It was a place to practice writing, and get comfortable with talking about myself.

And while I haven�t evolved into a completely different person, I think that my life is very different from how it was when I started this. Whether it comes through or not, there is a lot of sadness, frustration, and sometimes even a little despair in this here diary, and I don�t want to hang onto that anymore. I am, overall, in a good place now.

I�ll leave this diary up here as a reminder of where I�ve been, but if I start a new blog, I want it to be a place of all that is positive in my life. Or to put it more accurately, since I know well that life can�t be good all the time, a place where I approach everything from a positive direction, instead of a negative one.

So thanks for reading (if any of you still are). This has been a pretty good experiment for me, and I will almost definitely start up another blog where I will no doubt implement all of the wonderful blogging lessons I�ve learned here. If you�d like to be informed of the new blog drop me a line or leave me a comment.

Otherwise�so long, and thanks for all the fish.

go west + go east