Night write

Personal writing is often my procrastination tool.

In the old days, I regularly wrote in my blog late at night. So many of the old 2004-2005 entries are in the midnight-4am range. This was back when I worked the night shift as a concierge at a fancy condo building in London, Ontario. I would arrive for my night shift, half-fried from the school day, full of twenty-something stress and angst. After the shift change I would settle into the dark, quiet time. I had a computer with internet access and few obligations. There was a unique feeling to that workspace, that job. Home base was a somber, elegant marble desk with visibility through chic, transparent double doors looking into an empty, intricate courtyard. Quiet dark night. Echoing hollow footfalls. Racoons and crickets. It was pretty ideal for creatively writing.

Now it’s 9:22am and it feels wrong to be wasting morning energy on the selfish act of inwardly focused writing. Yet I’ve learned that years from now, it’s exactly these procrastinating self-indulgent notes that my future self will cherish.

2004 – 2013

Yesterday I spent a lot of time cleaning up formatting and broken links on my old Xanga blog entries that make up the posts from 2004-2013 on this site. I am so grateful that I have this treasure trove of writing. This was me from age 24 to 33, struggling to define and build the foundation of my life. I am so happy I captured it. Reading through caused so many of my amorphous, ethereal memories to be injected with hilarious color and detail that would have otherwise have been lost to time.

But holy shit, was it an overload of bittersweet nostalgia.

One of the best things about this exercise was reading all the old comments on my posts. They are restored now too. I miss the friendly support and encouragement from Xanga friends. These relationships were meaningful, but also had a parasocial element, where you didn’t know each other beyond the mutual assimilation of personal writing. That pseudo-anonymity was the secret sauce. It provided a veneer of psychological safety to freely muse and vent. It allowed deep social connection without real life logistics.

I am grateful to wonderplum, Kalligenia, lizamae, Sarahndipidee, tania_li, TheParkN8r, peaceofmymind84, coconutjules, Meghantothemax, reyrey12, shygirLuv, kwasham, Happytalia, shadowed_perfections and doraemon08. All those Xanga comments were little gifts, and I treasure them.