One Year

A little over a year ago, I decided to start an online journal. I'd always kept a private journal but never considered making it public until stumbling over the phenomenon on the Web. Before I started, I thought long and hard about what this would entail. I lurked for awhile on some journaling lists; I read Diane Patterson's excellent article, Why Web Journals Suck. When I was sure I understood the pros and cons of online journaling, I took the plunge and set up a free account at Xoom.

Tomorrow will mark the one-year anniversary of Jabberwocky. Well, that's not technically true. My first online entry is dated January 11, 2000, but I remember I didn't quite have everything set until a few days after that. Once I finally had my site on Xoom, I copied in a few entries from my off-line journal, just to get the feel of how I was going to handle my site navigation and archives. Nevertheless, tomorrow will serve well enough as the anniversary.

One year. I'm proud of that achievement. I'm not always good at sticking with something, even something that interests me as much as writing these entries. Between raising the boys, trying to get our home ready for a move, and my freelancing, it would be very easy just to give this up. I have more than enough other claims on my time.

And yet I'm not ready to give it up. Though I try to write offline every day, there have been short stretches of time where I have had neither the inclination nor the opportunity to upload an entry. Sometimes I am stressed out with other obligations. Sometimes I am preoccupied with my feelings and reactions to the people in my life and am skittish about publicly posting these ruminations for anyone to read. So I fall silent for a day, or two, or three.

I can't stay away long, however. Eventually I feel the compulsion once again to share with you the bits and pieces of our lives.

Among the many cogent points Diane makes in her essay is that anyone starting an online journal should write with a particular audience in mind. I took that bit of advice to heart. I'd always envisioned two audiences for my journal: my family in Maine, to whom the entries would be like an ongoing, newsy letter, and my sons when they grow up. I wanted to give my boys an idea of what our lives are like now when they are young and a glimpse of the person I am, beyond simply their mother.

What I didn't imagine was how important a third audience would become to me: you, the readers whom I have never met but who have chosen to share my life.

Thanks to you, dear readers. You are the unexpected blessing to this year-long journey. Your kind condolences when my grandmother died, your words of reassurance after a particularly painful entry, even the simple emails of "Yes! I know just what you mean!" have brought me such joy. Some of you have become friends, some have never written to me at all, but each one of you is precious to me. Simply in reading Jabberwocky, in continuing to come back, you have given me a great gift.

So thank you. All of you! More than I can ever say.

:-----:

In honor of my one year anniversary Jabberwocky has a new look! My brand new design is courtesy of Brittly of Postcards from the Pond. For some time I've been dissatisfied with my site's design, but I lacked the time and artistic sensibilities to make the changes I wanted to make. Then this past weekend on a journals mailing list, Brittly asked the fateful question: "What do you do when you have great design ideas and no site to redesign?"

"Give 'em to me!" was my answer. I didn't expect her to take me up on the offer of my site on which to flex her creative muscle, but she seemed excited by the idea and immediately set to work. Less than a day later she had completed this lovely, spare, elegant design. I couldn't be happier with it.

Thank you, Brittly!

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