It looks like there's a trend in this reunion thing to give a brief rundown of your history with MindSay and a snapshot of yourself. Okay...
I've been blogging here since my freshman year of high school. I'm now a sophomore in college, so that's what... about six years. I feel like I've grown up here on MindSay, and with MindSay.
I've gone through a few incarnations since I've been here. I had to delete my original blog towards the end of my freshman year because my mother found it and things weren't so great back then. A made a new one which I had to delete again about a year later for the same reason. Things were better then, but she invaded my privacy and found out things which I would not have wanted her to know. I still feel very sad for having lost those blogs and not saved anything from them, but I have created a lot of new, great memories on this account, which my profile says I've had now since 2005.
I don't think I was ever a hugely popular or well-known member like some of you. Well, I take that back. I probably spent about a year or two a long time ago where I made good posts on a very regular basis and people seemed to enjoy that. I enjoyed it too. A lot. Those were times of great discovery and feeling for me, and I loved to share it with you all and have you there as a sounding board. The people I came across at that time were varied and always interesting. Some have made a big impact on me, some have stuck around for a long time and some have long since moved on, leaving me with some great memories and life lessons that I won't ever forget.
It's making me a bit sad to see so many familiar faces (or, avatars, rather lol) return to my inbox this week. The change this community has experienced took place slowly. Many of you know what change I'm talking about. It took place so slowly, and of course eventually we all noticed it, but because of the ease of it, I guess I never noticed how drastic the change really was. Seeing you all here this week reminds me of the hay-day of MindSay. When there were so many wonderful bloggers flooding my inbox every day I could hardly keep up. When I was so excited to meet new people, and there were so many people to meet - I would go to a favorite blogger's blog and just click on all of their recent visitors to see what new amazing person I might stumble upon. Did any of you ever do that? lol I was always getting comments from new people. There were so many people with so many viewpoints out there, I loved being challenged to grow and expand by many of you. Yes, this place had a great role in how I grew up, in shaping me as a person.
I absolutely loved blogging, and for a while people loved reading my blog. Like I said, it was a time of great discovery and inner searching for me and sharing that all with you was a priceless experience. When I was going through high school there were many bloggers older than me who took it upon themselves to guide me, talk to me, befriend me. That was a time that I really needed all of that. It's hard to look back on some of the best times in my life so far and not see MindSay there.
Nowadays my blog tends to be much more mundane than it was back then, when I made thought-provoking, spiritual or controversial or fun posts all the time. When I noticed that period coming to an end, I tried for a couple years to hold onto it. But that's over now. Sometimes I slip back into that and make some posts that I think are good. But I don't think they're as appreciated anymore since this community has changed.
I dunno where on the web many of those great people are now, but some of you have returned and it's so, so wonderful, and I'm sure the rest are still out there being great and spreading the goodness they shared here elsewhere. Thank you Smurfy for initiating this reunion. It's only Tuesday and it's already been a nice experience. I'm looking forward to the rest of the week. Maybe I'll try to push out one of those old-fashioned posts from so long ago, if I can.
reunion
