I think I’ve figured it out

Back when I switched to LJ, I cited a lot of reasons. They were good ones. I especially liked the greater filter control, and it’s nice (in some ways) to be plugged into a larger community. But now, with some distance behind the move, I think I can see that that’s not why I left Open Diary.

I stopped by today and looked at my own entries for the first time in a while. I’m working on a website that will be a sort of virtual scrap book for my theater experiences; I remembered that I’d written about most of them up through a few years ago in a series of entries on OD. I thought it’d make a nice reference point. I couldn’t find them because all of my old entries were gone. This diary only goes back to June 2004; a year after I graduated from college. Rice is gone. I faintly remember being pretty upset about it at the time, but now that those years have moved from recent, sometimes painful, past to nostalgic memories of defining parts of my life, those missing entries seem to me to be a really intense loss. If I had money, I’d pay a moderate amount of money for a chance to see into myself four, five, and six years ago. Did I write about 9/11? I assume so, but I have no memory of it.

I read this entry tonight. It struck me as darkly funny and sad.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make was just this. I think I know why I left OD for LJ. It wasn’t just, or maybe even primarily, for the features, although I do like them a lot. It’s because OD hurt me. I gave important pieces of myself to Open Diary, and it lost them. And coming back, and seeing my one hundred seven entries, and thinking of everything that is gone forever, is just too painful. I had to start over. I had to write somewhere where I wouldn’t have to think every day about what was lost.

I’m not blaming the fine folks who run this site. I don’t know enough of the details of what happened to know whether they were negligent or otherwise responsible. It just… well, it just doesn’t feel good to be here.

I’ll keep stopping by to read the couple of favorites I still read. But LiveJournal is definitely my home now.