I forget why I created this space originally — it’s been almost four years since I came up with this hilariously unique username (don’t ask about the inspiration, partially because it’s dumb and unimportant, and mostly because I can’t remember). I just knew I was craving an anonymous corner of the internet, after my original anonymous corner had grown too big for me and people “knew” me and I had solidified myself as an “expert” in a highly specific niche subject.

Over the years, it’s been nice to make genuine good friends online that I would have never have met if it weren’t us being all-out dorks about the niche subject. It’s weird to think that an internet friend is such a good friend that she would even go out of her way to attend your father’s memorial.

Yeah.

Perhaps the real reason I’ve dusted this off, keeping myself from creating yet another ghost-town blog that would go ignored. If I’m going to forget to cancel the renewal payments, I might as well make good use of it.

So here I am, attempting to sort myself out with the written word, the way I have done ever since I was old enough to form proper sentences. I should just keep it all in a private diary, but who does that anymore?

And somehow writing it down… in pen… in my handwriting, in a book that will be there, sitting there, physical and real and something to touch… it’s just too much. Give me the ephemera of these 1’s and 0’s, where months from now I can pretend it never existed.

But for now, I need this space, to be me, to be real, to be in pain and confused and uncertain of the future. To slap on some lipstick and pretend that everything’s all right, to smile and get through the day.

Because I can. And I do. And I will.