"Friends page tonight" or "Idea of where"
LJ, I know it's been a while. I hardly recognize the place. It's disheartening. First off, for some reason, when I try to go back on my friends page, it jumps from February 19th to August 22, 2013 and it won't go back any further. It's so weird. But it's far more than just the layout and (possible) glitches, though I find those annoying. It's the people.
I used to read posts from friends here on LJ, have conversations and discussions with people all over the world. I look at my friends page tonight and three-fourths of the "posts" are titled "My Tweets". People whose posts I used to really enjoy and miss now. I don't begrudge anyone for being on twitter. But it seems to me that if I wanted to follow your twitter feed, I'd have an account on twitter and subscribe to your account. (At least I presume that's how it works. Personally, I had trouble following... well, anything on there. Granted, this was a while ago, but when I first checked out the site, it looked like I was looking at a thread, but reading the "thread," no one seemed to be referring to anything that remotely had to do with the previous post. I'm probably missing something, but it just looked like a great big mess to me. Anywho....) I seems to be a trend that's across the board here at LJ. Communities I used to love have gone silent. In fact it looks like most of mine are inactive. Of course, I'm guilty of favoring other sites, too. Ravelry is my go-to on-line time-suck these days. I've spent way too much time lately downloading free patterns, most of which I'll probably never use.
My old LJ friends were friends I looked forward to hearing from; friends I'd chat with on AIM; friends who were there for me through some really difficult times; friends I had fun going back and forth with; friends felt I was close to. I look at my friends page now and too many have abandoned their journals for more popular social networking sites. I have one friend who completely purged her account. Even comments she left on my journal have been wiped out. Abandoning an account, even deleting one... Maybe you don't want the clutter. Maybe you have certain people you want to avoid. Maybe you just want a new username. But purging. Maybe I'm sentimental, but I can't imagine completely obliterating a piece of my life like that. And I miss her. I miss many of them. I miss the camaraderie. I wondering what they're up to, how they're doing, and I can't find them on LJ anymore and it makes me sad, slightly worried and just a little bit lonelier.
When it comes to my newer LJ friends, I certainly appreciate you, but feel like I'm jumping in late in the game and there's too much catching up to do. I look at my friends page now and realize that I have no idea who you are. It's not that I don't want you as friends, or that I don't want new ones. I just don't feel as connected. My last round of friends I made through a "friending frenzy," which at the time I thought was a good way to make new friends. My older friends were ones I made through communities and mutual friends - people I knew I had something in common with. As a result, I feel the friendship developed more organically. But then also I have myself to blame for not working on these newer friendships. I did the "friending frenzy" at a time when my own contributions and even my visits to LJ were fewer and further between. I didn't make the effort to really get to know you and I'm sorry about that.
And now, I check out journals of my older LJ friends who are still active realized how much I've missed out on their lives and I feel disconnected from them, too.
I'm realizing now that this entry took a very different direction than my original intention for this post. The truth is, I've wanted to update for a while now. I just feel like I have so much to catch up on that I don't know where to start. My health, my family, the dog, changes around the house, places I've gone to, thoughts and feelings. I guess I have written about my feelings in this post, but my feelings about LJ rather than my life in general. I guess I felt the need to explain why I've been avoiding LJ for a while. I really would like to get back to it all. Because the truth is, I've never just thought of LJ soley as a social networking site, though I have enjoyed that aspect of it. It's a place where I can be creative, go on an angry rant, express my opinion, get feedback and... well, journal. Write out my feelings. That's one thing I feel other networking sites lack. I need to start journaling again. Connect not just to others, but to myself.
With that out of the way, I have an idea of where to start. After my last real entry where I complained about changes in my life I wasn't happy with I decided I needed to post something about positive changes, so that's what I'm going to do. But not now. It's late and I'm tired and I need something to eat.
♥
P.S. As I said, it's late and I'm food-deprived and I moved some things around while I was writing it, so I'm sorry if it doesn't make much sense.
I used to read posts from friends here on LJ, have conversations and discussions with people all over the world. I look at my friends page tonight and three-fourths of the "posts" are titled "My Tweets". People whose posts I used to really enjoy and miss now. I don't begrudge anyone for being on twitter. But it seems to me that if I wanted to follow your twitter feed, I'd have an account on twitter and subscribe to your account. (At least I presume that's how it works. Personally, I had trouble following... well, anything on there. Granted, this was a while ago, but when I first checked out the site, it looked like I was looking at a thread, but reading the "thread," no one seemed to be referring to anything that remotely had to do with the previous post. I'm probably missing something, but it just looked like a great big mess to me. Anywho....) I seems to be a trend that's across the board here at LJ. Communities I used to love have gone silent. In fact it looks like most of mine are inactive. Of course, I'm guilty of favoring other sites, too. Ravelry is my go-to on-line time-suck these days. I've spent way too much time lately downloading free patterns, most of which I'll probably never use.
My old LJ friends were friends I looked forward to hearing from; friends I'd chat with on AIM; friends who were there for me through some really difficult times; friends I had fun going back and forth with; friends felt I was close to. I look at my friends page now and too many have abandoned their journals for more popular social networking sites. I have one friend who completely purged her account. Even comments she left on my journal have been wiped out. Abandoning an account, even deleting one... Maybe you don't want the clutter. Maybe you have certain people you want to avoid. Maybe you just want a new username. But purging. Maybe I'm sentimental, but I can't imagine completely obliterating a piece of my life like that. And I miss her. I miss many of them. I miss the camaraderie. I wondering what they're up to, how they're doing, and I can't find them on LJ anymore and it makes me sad, slightly worried and just a little bit lonelier.
When it comes to my newer LJ friends, I certainly appreciate you, but feel like I'm jumping in late in the game and there's too much catching up to do. I look at my friends page now and realize that I have no idea who you are. It's not that I don't want you as friends, or that I don't want new ones. I just don't feel as connected. My last round of friends I made through a "friending frenzy," which at the time I thought was a good way to make new friends. My older friends were ones I made through communities and mutual friends - people I knew I had something in common with. As a result, I feel the friendship developed more organically. But then also I have myself to blame for not working on these newer friendships. I did the "friending frenzy" at a time when my own contributions and even my visits to LJ were fewer and further between. I didn't make the effort to really get to know you and I'm sorry about that.
And now, I check out journals of my older LJ friends who are still active realized how much I've missed out on their lives and I feel disconnected from them, too.
I'm realizing now that this entry took a very different direction than my original intention for this post. The truth is, I've wanted to update for a while now. I just feel like I have so much to catch up on that I don't know where to start. My health, my family, the dog, changes around the house, places I've gone to, thoughts and feelings. I guess I have written about my feelings in this post, but my feelings about LJ rather than my life in general. I guess I felt the need to explain why I've been avoiding LJ for a while. I really would like to get back to it all. Because the truth is, I've never just thought of LJ soley as a social networking site, though I have enjoyed that aspect of it. It's a place where I can be creative, go on an angry rant, express my opinion, get feedback and... well, journal. Write out my feelings. That's one thing I feel other networking sites lack. I need to start journaling again. Connect not just to others, but to myself.
With that out of the way, I have an idea of where to start. After my last real entry where I complained about changes in my life I wasn't happy with I decided I needed to post something about positive changes, so that's what I'm going to do. But not now. It's late and I'm tired and I need something to eat.
♥
P.S. As I said, it's late and I'm food-deprived and I moved some things around while I was writing it, so I'm sorry if it doesn't make much sense.