Like Losing a Best Friend

OD is really starting to bother me.
Seeing as how I’ve been using (and promoting) this site since I was about twelve years old, it’s just…painful to watch.
This site is truly a shell of what it used to be.

From what I understand, the DiaryMaster "no longer has time" to maintain this site.
Perhaps I am misinformed, and feel free to correct me if I have misspoken.

However, if you no longer have time — pass the torch on to someone who DOES.

Either way, it is obvious that whoever is "in charge" of this site just…gives no fucks.
And that kind of upsets me.

You see, I have formed a number of friendships on this site,
one of which actually lived in my town and became one of my dearest friends.
Whom I never would have looked at twice if I had passed him in the street because he was a few years older than me, and
how else would we have met?
I got to know his heart first, before his personality, or his "exterior"…because I was privy to the details of his life via his diary.
And what a splendid way to meet someone, don’t you think?

I’ve gotten anonymous advice for many of my problems over the years,
and been talked out of the unthinkable numerous times…
By caring people on this website.
I’ve shared over ten years of my life with this site —
many details that not even my closest friends and family know.
I’ve met some great people, and laughed at a great many fucktards
(because there’s nothing like stupidity via the internet, right?)
I’ve shared my darkest secrets, and uncovered some of my greatest epiphanies.
I’ve put hours upon hours of work into, not only my writing, but other skills like HTML and etc.
I’ve, essentially, grown up on this site.
I started using this site as an angry, very confused, and very self-destructive almost-teenager…
and along the way, with many helping hands,
I grew, and blossomed, into the woman I am today.
 

And it’s not just about me.
This site has given me the opportunity to read the strife and joy of people from all over the world.
People in good places and bad places.
I’ve gotten perspective on many facets of the world that I otherwise would not have understood… or at least not at this point in my young life.
I’ve been able to send kind words, solid advice, and congratulations/cheers to hundreds — if not thousands — of people.
I’ve had the good fortune to read some of the most beautifully written words; it’s so amazing because they are unpublished, and, otherwise unheard.
I’ve been able to be a tiny part of this amazing tapestry of stories, woven from the years and years of community.
And it has been so, so, SO good…on so many levels.

To see it fall into this kind of disrepair is disheartening, for all those reasons and so many more.

I still write here because it is near and dear to my heart. And unless it gets even worse, I can’t imagine abandoning it.
Not even for — dare I mention it? — the P-word.
I admittedly created an account at Prosebox but I can’t say that I like it even half as much as I love this place.
It is simple, and there’s goodness in that, but it’s so…different….and…sub-par. Like OD’s destitute, ugly-branched cousin.
Sorry, but I don’t think I can pack up and move over there.

But —
it is also getting frustrating to have to click the "latest entry" button to view my notes;
it’s pissing me off that, when a Bookmark updates, I have to search their name in the search box in order to view their new entry.
It irritates me that OD lags, and lags, and lags, and it’s basically one giant loading screen.
First world internet problems? Likely.
But if you were here when OD ran like a stream of sunshine and rainbows, you can sympathize with my frustration.
 

I don’t know, I just…
it’s sort of like losing your best friend.
Or a million of them.