I disabled this site a couple of weeks ago to give myself some time to think about it all. I was wondering about the value to me of all this rumination and actually even wondering if I was possibly repelling people who otherwise might take the time with me by exposing them to my darker thoughts before they really ever encountered the light.
The unintended but quite wonderful effect of my disabling of these pages has been that all manner of people have been in contact with me since then – mainly just checking in (and, really, I did actually need checking in on). I’ve so appreciated the care people have shown yet I guess I still do want to say here that if you read this and you know me, don’t forget that while you might feel connected to me by reading this, I don’t know you’ve done it, so at my end it feels like what I write here largely goes out into a vacuum.
One of the underlying reasons that I maintain all these (there are actually thousands of them) pages online is that I still remember keenly what it was like for me as a young man feeling like there was never ‘anyone like me’ to look to. If only, in my day, there had been an internet full of people sharing their experiences. I would have felt a lot less alone and a lot less like a freak. I like that I do this, now, and even if no-one like me as a young man ever reads it, I still at least feel as if I’ve contributed something to a space where there once was nothing.
No longer can the voices aside from the mainstream be silenced – and this is a good thing. But at the same time, this is my life I talk about here, it’s not simply a public service broadcast, I often talk of a sense of alienation or solitude, so do write if you’re inclined to ever. Do.