And we're back
I've always had a funny relationship with the things that I put out on the internet. I've been blogging and podcasting and all sorts for over half my life at this point—I started my first blog when I was thirteen, I think?—but very little of it is readily available. I'm sure some of it's on the Wayback machine or what-have-you, but without a lot of effortful rooting-around, it's all gone. I will be putting stuff out very happily for a few years and then at some point I'll decide that I want to get rid of it all and start again, and I'll delete the site (or sometimes just the posts).
I don't know exactly what it is that makes me want to do this. Sometimes it's because I feel I've changed significantly and do not feel those older words are really mine any longer. But just as often it's not; there's just the desire for a clean start and I find some temporal milestone like the first day of a new year and I clean it all out and start again. I keep thinking: maybe I will get over this at some point, maybe I will find myself rid of the urge to purge, to sweep it all away and start again. But not today.