Revisionist Histories

[rebeccmeister]

One of the blogs I read periodically, but sometimes get irritated with, is Rowdy Kittens, written by someone who lives in a tiny house in Portland. I can't fully articulate what irritates me, but I can tell you that T often touches on good subjects.

Recently, she blogged about keeping her old journals. Quite a while back, scrottie blogged about how many of his friends have deleted their old livejournals. That action leads to a lot of speculation, without much direct information about what's going through a person's head - after all, they aren't blogging anymore. Something similar happened with my friend DM, although in that case I had an opportunity to have a conversation with her and ask about her decision.

I guess I feel like I'm at the other end of the spectrum. I started writing in a journal in third grade, and I still have that journal, even though it starts out with an unhappy entry, written in large, third-grade handwriting: "Today is my birthday. Not so good of a day." The second entry isn't much better: "I have felt lonely ever since the second grade." annikusrex and I used to sit down together to re-read through our journals periodically, sharing excerpts with each other. Eventually, along came the internet, and suddenly the barriers to self-publishing were lowered.

Ever since starting to blog on Livejournal, I've gone back and forth between the electronic journal and the paper one. The paper one has been neglected, although the few and far-in-between entries are still important. I've only written in there three times in 2012.

Somewhere in the middle of grad school, I made a decision about my journals. I wrote out a letter and made copies of it, and put the copies in all of the journals I've kept since that third grade one. Perhaps they're morbid, but they reflect my sense of self - I just ask that, whoever should find my journals after I'm dead, that hopefully if that person is someone I know and trust well, that I wish for the person to read through all of the journals, from that third-grader through the ridiculously angsty teenager up to the final pages. Then that person can decide whether to keep everything together, or lay it all to rest. I made this decision because I think it's important for us to know each other as complete people, capable of change, and incredibly imperfect.

I revisit the paper journal entries more frequently than the Livejournal entries. It's hard to page through old entries in a blog, and besides, I type so much that the sheer volume of information is overwhelming.

I had to look back, this morning, for things I wrote about when trying to decide about a roommate, and finally found what I'd written back in November. For me, it's useful to see that the things I was thinking and blogging about have been consistent between then and now (although, of course, a person should feel free to change her mind). Even though it's still very hard to make declarations but be in limbo all at the same time.

Talking to T, in Nebraska - he told me a number of different stories of students he's had over the years. He expressed a lot of surprise when he tried to be really clear with certain students about what things they needed to think about doing, but then those students failed to follow his advice and wound up dropping out of science (this ties in to ideas of how to respond constructively to criticism). In one particular case, a student dropped out without a clear route for publishing her work and findings, and now T is stuck with some useful, insightful data that he can't really use because he has no contact with the data's creator.

In comparison, for my career situation, T has been absolutely and completely supportive, and basically a useful mentor inasmuch as he can mentor from afar. I think much of his motivation has to do with wanting to encourage women in science, and also with reaching a point where he's ready to pass the torch to the next generation of scientists.

It's hard to know exactly what's the right thing to do, given some of the complexities of my situation - especially in terms of coping with feelings of uncertainty about the future, and not having a well-developed support network here in Texas. Regardless, I have to struggle on, and not shy away from the imperfections in that struggle.

Comments

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

I haven't really kept a paper journal in a number of years. I sort of use one when I travel, so that I can remember something to write it down later on LJ. A sort of taking notes as I go along.
But I do refer to my LJ a great deal. It's useful for looking up information because I've put it all there. There are a few paper journals I have kept but I kind of like that 19th century attitude of having people burn them when someone dies. (like the same with letters.)
There are a few that have things written in them that are heart-breaking and yet I don't quite have the energy to destroy them.
Much like the first year or so my LJ, I haven't deleted entries but I have locked them up tight. That first year in particular was excruciating and painful. Horrible things happened, I came undone, and it is still difficult to approach those entries.

I looked at RowdyKittens. I think she is a trifle... precious/twee and there is a sense of selling the appearances of a specific lifestyle.

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I kind of figured things could go in two directions with whatever remnants remain after I die - either deal with the whole package, or recycle those elements and allow them to rejoin the rest of the dust of the cosmos.

The searchability on LJ is definitely nice. I mostly refer back to food-related entries, to share recipes with people who ask about them. Not too long ago, I did a pretty extensive search of sytharin's LJ because I remembered her posting photos of herself right after wisdom tooth removal, and they were awesomely hilarious (I wanted to remember how she felt so I had some perspective on how I was feeling post gum surgery). I never did find the photos I was after, because they were hosted on a site that has been taken down sometime in the last 6 or so years.

I could understand wanting to lock up stuff like that. I just don't post any of that really heavy-duty stuff electronically. Although paper journals might be low-security inasmuch as someone could open them and read them, I still feel like they're less likely to get splashed all over the internet. But I also can't say I've gone through anything so horrible that I cannot revisit it. Your circumstances were different and were very difficult, based on what you have been able to talk about.

And yes - I dislike the twee-ness. It's irritating, actually. At the same time, I keep on going back, like a bad drug habit. I think it's because she touches on a lot of important life topics across different entries. I'm not especially interested in the types of books she's reading or anything, and find the "question-asking" bait at the end of blog posts to be a contrived method of gaining popularity. Shrug. I mean, I don't really keep the LJ for popularity's sake - deeper, longer-term friendships are of greater value to me. So that component just comes across as weird. I guess that's what "professional" bloggers try to do or something.

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

I think what you may be doing is what is referred to as "hate reading". I do that with a few things. You may like some things but there are those things where you find yourself going, "oh really... REALLY. You WOULD say that wouldn't you."

Professional bloggers are an interesting breed. There are those who got lucky years ago and then there are the whores. Nothing wrong with whoring as long as you are honest about your whoring. There are many who act so innocent about it.