Let the journal be opened.
Here I am, back on LiveJournal. I've been here before, see, and my old LJ is most likely still around. But I'm starting a new one, because I have new purposes for this one. (Also, I seem to have changed the password and forgotten it. I will do something to recover it, at least so I can inform old followers who might still be around, but today isn't the day, because first I need to recover the password for the e-mail address... Long story. Never binge-change your passwords in the middle of the night and then lose the note you wrote them on.)
Anyway, there are a few reasons I wanted to start a new LJ. I miss this place, damn it. No matter how popular some of the new forms of social media are, they're just not my thing as much as this place always was. Tumblr gives me headache with the overflow of stuff and images and just let's not go there. I hardly post anything on Facebook because it's attached to my name and followed by my mother and aunts and cousins and people I went to school with and even colleagues (I know, filters exist, but I'm lazy). Twitter's short for someone as verbose as me. My selfie-taking skills are close to nil. Blogs on Blogger seem to be designed much worse for communicating than this place. No, I want to give LJ a try. My old one was friends-only and pretty much all the friends had left. Didn't make much sense to communicate anymore. But I want to give a try to writing here, in a new place, mostly publicly, so I can get to know new people. I want to write about things I love. Things like books, theatre, history or my newfound interest in Dr Who. I'm not promising I'll write about all these things, but I want a place where I can, without it being something a prospective employer who of course never googles job applicants will immediately find.
Then there's another reason that's been getting evident lately. It'll have a post of its own, I think. But anyway, I'm starting to realise that seeing myself as a bisexual who can just try to focus on guys because it's the socially acceptable option... that isn't working. Because I just don't seem to actually like guys except some fictional ones. While I rather light up about the idea of girls. And something in me just becomes incredibly happy when I let myself think that I might acutally just be a lesbian, or at least a bisexual leaning rather more to the lesbian side. And that I at least don't want to pretend to be straight. And there's that whole side which just wants to be explored, let out and have a voice somewhere. Though I'm not completely closeted (several friends do know, and I've been to a Pride once), I'm still closeted enough that I don't want my Mum to find out while I'm looking for myself. So a place like this seems like the perfect solution. Here, I can at least talk about the fact that I like girls, talk about queer books and films and whatnot, talk about trying to find my way in this world with all this on my mind. And maybe it helps me live this part of me more in the non-internet world, too.
As yet I haven't done that much with the journal; the profile needs more information, the layout could use some attention, and I don't yet have any friends here. Speaking of friends, if you come across this journal and think we might have something in common, I welcome you! Like I said earlier, I want to get to know new people, I want to talk to people. I have a paper journal which I can use if I don't want to share things with anyone else. But forgive me that for a while the place is going to be under construction and not look all that fancy or tell very much about me. All in its time.
And a few words about the names: my real name, of course, is nothing like Amelia. I rather would like if it were. I got it partly from the film Amélie, partly from some other occurrences of some version of that name, and I just like it. The name of the journal is because I recently reread The Secret Garden and because it seemed like an appropriate metaphor. I like the idea of my online journal as a sort of garden where I cultivate beautiful or fruitful things that will hopefully bring happiness, healing and fulfillment.
But with these ramblings, let this journal be declared opened!
Anyway, there are a few reasons I wanted to start a new LJ. I miss this place, damn it. No matter how popular some of the new forms of social media are, they're just not my thing as much as this place always was. Tumblr gives me headache with the overflow of stuff and images and just let's not go there. I hardly post anything on Facebook because it's attached to my name and followed by my mother and aunts and cousins and people I went to school with and even colleagues (I know, filters exist, but I'm lazy). Twitter's short for someone as verbose as me. My selfie-taking skills are close to nil. Blogs on Blogger seem to be designed much worse for communicating than this place. No, I want to give LJ a try. My old one was friends-only and pretty much all the friends had left. Didn't make much sense to communicate anymore. But I want to give a try to writing here, in a new place, mostly publicly, so I can get to know new people. I want to write about things I love. Things like books, theatre, history or my newfound interest in Dr Who. I'm not promising I'll write about all these things, but I want a place where I can, without it being something a prospective employer who of course never googles job applicants will immediately find.
Then there's another reason that's been getting evident lately. It'll have a post of its own, I think. But anyway, I'm starting to realise that seeing myself as a bisexual who can just try to focus on guys because it's the socially acceptable option... that isn't working. Because I just don't seem to actually like guys except some fictional ones. While I rather light up about the idea of girls. And something in me just becomes incredibly happy when I let myself think that I might acutally just be a lesbian, or at least a bisexual leaning rather more to the lesbian side. And that I at least don't want to pretend to be straight. And there's that whole side which just wants to be explored, let out and have a voice somewhere. Though I'm not completely closeted (several friends do know, and I've been to a Pride once), I'm still closeted enough that I don't want my Mum to find out while I'm looking for myself. So a place like this seems like the perfect solution. Here, I can at least talk about the fact that I like girls, talk about queer books and films and whatnot, talk about trying to find my way in this world with all this on my mind. And maybe it helps me live this part of me more in the non-internet world, too.
As yet I haven't done that much with the journal; the profile needs more information, the layout could use some attention, and I don't yet have any friends here. Speaking of friends, if you come across this journal and think we might have something in common, I welcome you! Like I said earlier, I want to get to know new people, I want to talk to people. I have a paper journal which I can use if I don't want to share things with anyone else. But forgive me that for a while the place is going to be under construction and not look all that fancy or tell very much about me. All in its time.
And a few words about the names: my real name, of course, is nothing like Amelia. I rather would like if it were. I got it partly from the film Amélie, partly from some other occurrences of some version of that name, and I just like it. The name of the journal is because I recently reread The Secret Garden and because it seemed like an appropriate metaphor. I like the idea of my online journal as a sort of garden where I cultivate beautiful or fruitful things that will hopefully bring happiness, healing and fulfillment.
But with these ramblings, let this journal be declared opened!