I’ve been blogging in some form since 1998, and all but the first few years are on this site. Nearly 20 years of my life, documented online. Not everything, of course, but significant portions of it. It seems totally crazy yet totally normal at the same time.
A 100-day long “blog” from 2001, before the saroy.net domain. I still love this 14 years later.
Lately I’ve been going back through my archives a few posts at a time, mainly to update punctuation and fix broken links, but also because it’s just kind of fun. I read those deep, deep archives and sometimes cringe, but usually smile. They are random, they are boring, but they are my life. I remember those days and I’m glad that I recorded them.
Blogs are funny things. When I started, they didn’t make any money. They weren’t a business. They didn’t feature styled photoshoots. They were just online, public diaries with all the positives and negatives that entailed.
This site in 2003, powered by Blogger and before the era of social media.
I’ve been asking myself a lot lately: what do I want this blog to be? Do I need to post every day? Do I need to be an Amazon Affiliate? Do I need to join an ad network? Why do I care about hits and comments? It wasn’t always so important to me.
For the last 18 months or so, I’ve been posting nearly every weekday, with only a few exceptions. I wonder if anyone notices, or if anyone cares? I started doing it on a whim — because daily posts were something I saw others doing, because I wondered if it would bring more readers, because my posts had become a bit sporadic compared to previous years, because I wanted to just see if I could. I’m surprised that I was able to keep it up for as long as I did, but the “experiment” may have run its course for now. This isn’t a business; it’s just my blog. It’s become more difficult for me to come up with a post every day, and if that’s not a sign to stop, I don’t know what is.
2005 version. I think I was using Movable Type to run it at this point. I had a photoblog too.
Instead of coming up with things to write about, I want to just write when I feel like writing. Who am I trying to impress other than myself? My archives from 10 years ago are often more interesting to me than what I wrote last year. Maybe that’s nostalgia…but maybe it’s because that was life, instead of me sometimes trying and often failing to fit some “blogger” mold.
Snapshot from 2008. Look at that blogroll! The only one who still really blogs is Jen.
And I think a lot about what I could or should post here. I think about my job, my career. I think about household management. I think about motherhood and parenthood. But while I’ve got those zillion things on my mind, I tend to only write about the superficial. I want to get back to being real. More authentic. And I also want to be more relaxed. More “enough.”
Basically? Less of “them” and more of ME.
And that actually sounds pretty nice.
Hah! I love coming across people who were on the internet before web 2.0 and social media. I did some Geocities ‘pages’ pre-2002 but in 2002 I started a blogspot blog and then did some self coding on geocities for years, then had a few sub-hosted sites by my brother before finally landing on my own domain sometime around 2008. And then I still self coded and updated it manually until I got around to installing WordPress in 2010.
I took a lot of my early stuff offline because well, it was mostly for my internet friends and myself—-not for the greater public—so slightly ranty and embarassing!
I miss posting daily but my life isn’t set up for it now. I’m like you though, I’ve gone ’round and ’round about what my blog is…of course I want to make money off of it but I have no set up or desire for it right now.
It would definitely be nice to make money…but I’m 99% sure I don’t have the time or motivation it would take to really keep that up!
And hooray for another old school blogger! My first ones were hand-coded in college, then I went to Diaryland -> Blogger -> self-hosted Movable Type -> self-hosted WordPress. I’ve thought about taking my archives offline for similar reasons, but ended up leaving them here because I like having them here for completeness and because they don’t get much traffic anyway.
Sometimes I get nostalgic about blogging. I started in 2001 and blogged for ten years, until about 2011. Then I took my blog down because I was applying to jobs and didn’t want to attract attention with it. And I forgot to renew my server space, and lost all my blog entries from around 2008-2011 (when I did a migration), I recaptured some, bot not all of them via internet archive. But I guess I just lost the will to blog at that point. Facebook provides me some of the outlet I need. And I’ve always kept a personal, private diary since I’ve been old enough to write, apparently that’s enough. But I do get nostalgic. My blog was definitely more interesting earlier in its life, but I think that was because my life was more generically interesting. Its fun to recollect all those trips and adventures and new experience, life is more routine now. Though I do joke about starting a random, only semi-fictional, engineer-goes-to-law school blog. Or maybe I should write a book. ….
Oh man, geocities, I can’t even remember my hyperlink on that from 1997, but it would be HILLARIOUS to go find that site!
I know, it makes me cringe that you lost a few years of your blog. Eek. That’s technology for you, I guess — and a reminder to me to make sure I’m saving periodic backups.
Personal diaries have never appealed to me. I have no idea why when blogging obviously appeals to me greatly.
Well, I noticed that you blog every day. I read it every morning while I nurse Briony. And, for the record, it is my favorite blog. There are others that come and go – my lastest favorite quilter, or when I’m pregnant or trying to conceive, I enjoy reading pregnancy and baby blogs – but this has by far been the most consistent.
I miss Becca’s blog. Facebook is just so terse.
What I miss, though, about your blog, Becca’s blog, and my own blog, is the ability to be very, very honest. That disappears with a spouse and with a real job. While none of us every posted about EVERYTHING, our blogs I think used to be quite juicy ten years ago, and it’s safe to say now they are really not. For good reason. But I miss that. It has become unprofessional and the opposite of classy to post about what matters most – the detailed daily challenges and struggles of career and relationships with co-workers, and the very personal challenge of raising a family and making that work.
I agree, FB is just not the same as a blog for me. No social media really is — it’s all too short!
And I DEFINITELY agree on the honesty factor. I feel like I just can’t be as forthcoming as I once was for so many reasons — job, spouse, kid. It’s either unfair or unprofessional to air too much about conflicts in those areas. Motherhood is somewhat of an exception because I feel like that is just me, but I still don’t want to say anything that Emma might be bothered by 15 years from now. It’s tough.
I noticed for sure, and your my favorite blog too. For me because it always rode that cusp of professionally done but personal and also I identify with you and in ways our family followed your path a couple years behind. I don’t know you but you are a friend of a friend and after I stumbled on here years ago I never left. You’re the main reason I started a blog when I got pregnant and with an almost 7 month old now I’m so thankful to you for providing something of a template I borrow ideas from; and thankful for the motivation to keep a record in this way. Already the record is so important to me and appreciated by my family. I thought about blogging daily but decided that it’s not for me; too much to maintain and commit to. I was wondering with your ‘enough’ if you would cut back. I’ll miss daily posts but I would cut back if I were in your shoes. I blog weekly which is too infrequent for my taste but something I can stick to.
Aw, thanks Summer! I often wonder if it’s basically only my friends who read this anymore, so it’s fun — and personally rewarding — to hear that what I post does resonate with other people!
I love your blog and have also noticed you posting everyday. I am a random who doesn’t know you, and have no idea now how I found you, but I love your writing and the variety of topics you blog about. You have also motivated me to make monthly goals which has been really great. I also have a kid around the same age as yours so your kid updates resonate with me too.