The Goodbye Letter.

Denizens of Soon-To-Be-No-More Open Diary, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends, Good Friends, and Enemies,

This is the end.  We knew it would happen and now it is here. 

In early January, I turned 40.  FUCKING 40.  I know. I don’t believe it either, but somehow it happened and here I am.  40.  I don’t believe that “life begins at 40”.  I don’t believe that 40 is anything other than it is. It is the “old age of my youth, and the youth of my old age.”

I’m a reflective sort, and I’ve had an awful lot of time to reflect over the past several months.  To evaluate, and re-evaluate; consider and re-consider.  There’s a lot I don’t know, and just a little that I do know.

What I know is that life is short, and for those of you who live without a sense of purpose, of urgency, of passion, you will wake up and be 40 or 50 or 60 and wonder where the time went.  You don’t have time to get into that bad relationship, make those financial mistakes, not finish your college degree.  You have to do it, and you have to do it NOW.  You are worth it, and more importantly, your life and legacy is worth it. 

Living the life of safety, never taking risks, never exercising your life-muscles is not a life that is enviable or legendary. 

Strive to be a legend. 

Strive to be more than you are. 

Strive to change the world. 

That doesn’t mean you have to become president.  You know what? I adopted a kid from Bulgaria, and I changed the world that way.  I was afraid, but I did not let fear paralyze me. 

As I exit this place, not of my own will but on my own terms, I must acknowledge how Open Diary has impacted me.  There are relationships in my life that simply would not exist if this place hadn’t existed.  I want my last words here to be my own, free from fear and full of honesty. 

There are a group of people that I care for as much as if I had met them personally.  These are some of the people that have made this journey here what it has been. 

When I was pregnant with my twins, I got stretch marks from my pregnancy.  My twin boys are gone but the stretch marks remain.  These individuals are my stretch marks from this place.   Some of them I have met in person.  Others, I know I will meet someday.  They are the treasures that I must thank this flawed site for bringing to me.

There are the lost friendships; the friendships that fell away and the diarists that disappeared.  For those who I followed faithfully but who am I am not personally close to, I know I will lose those connections but I will remember many of your stories and lives for a long time.

There are the ugly friendships.  The friendships that ended, in some cases for reasons I will never understand.  Tranquil Disorder, wherever you are, you went shit-faced psychotic after you popped out some kids.  It’s the like act of passing offspring through your uterus somehow forever brain damaged you.  You seriously went bat shit nutty.  You probably still are. Enjoy your life. I’m only sorry we share a facebook friend because when I see your name, I just want to comment on what a twatwaffle you truly are.

There were hilarious shill diaries like Cutie Pie, which my husband and I still sometimes reference.  There’s the infamous Ashleigh Bin Field, who honestly needs a good dose of….something.  But I at least I find some humor it in. 

Not long after my daughter was born, there was a Dark Time.  The time when my honesty was misunderstood by a group of small minded, intolerant assholes.  I later realized that truth is sometimes ugly and difficult to process sometimes.  Unpopular feelings can be misinterpreted when the recipients of the messages simply lack the capability to intelligently interpret.  Such is the case with the likes of Lucinda.obscura, esoteric (what a joke), dr. sarah to be, and others. 

Yes, you.  The only thing you proved is that you are all a bunch of cunty twatwaffles.  That’s all you proved.  Your feelings about me, and your criticism as I evolved into a mother, never for once impacted how I actually mother or what mothering means to me.  I was searching for understanding, to define this new role.  You were searching for a target to whip.  You and your group of narrow minded Stepford Wives do not have a tenth of the depth and understanding I have.  You’re not even good writers.  The bottom line is, none of you could handle for a moment the kinds of challenges I’ve faced being a mother to my daughter, let alone my son who NONE of you would have ever chosen to adopt and wouldn’t have been fearless enough to attempt.  NONE OF YOU.  You suck.  You will always suck.  Throw down your mothering, bitches.  You may be a bunch of crunchy whores who cloth diaper and shun GMOs, and I may feed my kid mac and cheese, but I am STILL BETTER THAN YOU.  Go fuck yourselves. Publicly, and forevermore.  GO FUCK YOURSELVES WITH A CLOTH DIAPER UP YOUR GMO-FREE ANUS HOLES.

To Quixotic:  I know she doesn’t read anymore but I was sorry then and I still am. 

And now you.  All of YOU.  The ones who lurked, the ones who cared, the ones who said, “Don’t disappear” when I did for a while, the ones who gave advice, the ones who rooted for me in my adoption and in my undergraduate degree, who cried when my twins died and rejoiced when my daughter was born, who didn’t judge me (even if I made you uncomfortable); you who laughed at my jokes, cared about me even if you secretly wondered if I was “all there”, who sent me gifts for my daughter’s birth, contributed to my adoption, who were there when I divorced Joe and married Jon and then nearly divorced him (multiple times!) again….

You.  YOU.

I love you.  I loved this place BECAUSE of you.  The sadness I feel is palpable.  I have been coming to this space for just about 14 of the 15 years it’s been around.  I paid my lifetime dues.  I knew I would never leave; no, even when the site never worked and nobody cared…I knew I could never leave.  It was the only space I could leave every ugly, non-functional thought.  It was the place I could be honest, even if it hurt people or harmed myself.  I learned to grow through this place and through my writing here.  I always wrote for my

self but you, so many of you, became friends and people I cared about. 

Do you know how many times in an argument I would load my diary, search it for a key phrase, and then rattle off some entry to Jon?  This space was my lifeline to sanity, a container of all things sacred.  Now it will disappear, nearly in the same unceremonious way that In The Wire did.  Facebook doesn’t replace this place, and I reject that Facebook is the reason it died.  What about blogger or wordpress?  Those sites remain! 

*sigh*

I want to believe that all of you will be around somewhere; maybe prosebox, maybe somewhere else, and that I will keep up with you.  But I know that’s not true for some.  And for those, I’m sorry.  We will lose touch.  My list of favorites will be gone and my favorite place; where I crawled under the fabric of the quilt, will be gone too.  No longer can I share my stories of Chelsea or my rantings with Jon or the latest bullshit with him or with life.  Facebook isn’t a safe space, but this place felt like it. 

I knew it was going away, and yet the reality of this going away is incredibly hard for me.  As I write this, I feel the tears stinging.  Oh Open Diary, you’re such a piece of shit, but I’ll miss you.  Damn you. 

Did you expect a quick sign off?  FROM ME?  Come on now.

I’m on prosebox, under the same name.  Come and find me there.  I can’t promise anything but I’ll try to adjust better.  If you haven’t realized it by now, I don’t handle change well.

Till then.

“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” – Henry David Thoreau

Foreverloves.