Why I'm still here
Aug. 1st, 2014 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramosI haven't left LiveJournal altogether, but don't post here often anymore. The main reason, as you may already know, is I keep a professional blog now at Speed River Journal. It's all about nature, gardening, local food, fibre crafts and some related things I write about (or hope to) for a living. I don't cross-post to LiveJournal, but it is syndicated in case you want to follow it in your feed: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
speedriverjourn. I try to post there three times a week.
While I make a point of writing publicly about mental health issues, for obvious reasons I try to avoid navel-gazing and getting too personal about it on my professional blog. And while I use Facebook mostly for personal connections, there are other reasons why I sometimes don't want to post personal stuff there: besides the fact that long-winded posts seem inappropriate, I am often uncomfortable navel-gazing in front of so many friends and relatives I have known in person through the course of my life. Even if I'm comfortable with them reading it, they might not want to see it.
So LJ has become the place where I dump baggage. Sorry about that. Although I usually post publicly, I've turned off the search engine option, so someone would have to really want to find this journal in order to do so. But half the time, after I have dumped or whined, I am so embarrassed by my words that I set the post to private. Other times I do want to share something long-winded or personal on Facebook, but it seems more suitable to post it here and offer them a link.
Back in the day, we had a strong community on LJ. At first it was mostly with people I had never met, and never expected to meet except maybe on occasion to extend our long-distance friendships.
Then a couple of things happened. One, I started meeting a lot of LJers, particularly in the Toronto bear community. That was mostly a good thing, but it also slowly ruined LJ as a place where I was comfortable airing all my laundry, at least for the time being. Two, somewhat later, a lot of people left LJ in favour of Facebook or something else. And that was a shame. Eventually, the IRL social group mostly departed and the ones of us left behind were those who wanted it as a personal journal in the first place. So I became more comfortable sharing personal things here again.
I won't be leaving. But to be honest, I seldom have time to read, and my habits are moving further away from spending a lot of time absorbed in social media. Now I spend most of the hours of my work day online -- writing, researching, look for opportunities, and connecting with colleagues and clients -- and it simply isn't healthy for me to spend so much personal time, too. Over the past year I've been weaning myself, devoting more energy to gardening, fibre crafts and real-world cultural and social events. Next in my sights is more reading, and I mean magazines and books, which will take up more of the evening time I sometimes spend connecting with online friends.
When I think of how many people on LJ have impacted me importantly, and some who still post here, it saddens me to drift a little further. But the past several years I've experienced some rather staggering improvements in my mental and physical well-being, so I believe it's the right course to become further engaged in nature, my professional network, my local community, and of course my home life withdjjo. We have another physical move on the horizon this fall, so there are bound to be a lot more changes coming along.
But I'm still around and enjoy the chance to connect when we can. Here I am.
speedriverjourn. I try to post there three times a week.While I make a point of writing publicly about mental health issues, for obvious reasons I try to avoid navel-gazing and getting too personal about it on my professional blog. And while I use Facebook mostly for personal connections, there are other reasons why I sometimes don't want to post personal stuff there: besides the fact that long-winded posts seem inappropriate, I am often uncomfortable navel-gazing in front of so many friends and relatives I have known in person through the course of my life. Even if I'm comfortable with them reading it, they might not want to see it.
So LJ has become the place where I dump baggage. Sorry about that. Although I usually post publicly, I've turned off the search engine option, so someone would have to really want to find this journal in order to do so. But half the time, after I have dumped or whined, I am so embarrassed by my words that I set the post to private. Other times I do want to share something long-winded or personal on Facebook, but it seems more suitable to post it here and offer them a link.
Back in the day, we had a strong community on LJ. At first it was mostly with people I had never met, and never expected to meet except maybe on occasion to extend our long-distance friendships.
Then a couple of things happened. One, I started meeting a lot of LJers, particularly in the Toronto bear community. That was mostly a good thing, but it also slowly ruined LJ as a place where I was comfortable airing all my laundry, at least for the time being. Two, somewhat later, a lot of people left LJ in favour of Facebook or something else. And that was a shame. Eventually, the IRL social group mostly departed and the ones of us left behind were those who wanted it as a personal journal in the first place. So I became more comfortable sharing personal things here again.
I won't be leaving. But to be honest, I seldom have time to read, and my habits are moving further away from spending a lot of time absorbed in social media. Now I spend most of the hours of my work day online -- writing, researching, look for opportunities, and connecting with colleagues and clients -- and it simply isn't healthy for me to spend so much personal time, too. Over the past year I've been weaning myself, devoting more energy to gardening, fibre crafts and real-world cultural and social events. Next in my sights is more reading, and I mean magazines and books, which will take up more of the evening time I sometimes spend connecting with online friends.
When I think of how many people on LJ have impacted me importantly, and some who still post here, it saddens me to drift a little further. But the past several years I've experienced some rather staggering improvements in my mental and physical well-being, so I believe it's the right course to become further engaged in nature, my professional network, my local community, and of course my home life with
djjo. We have another physical move on the horizon this fall, so there are bound to be a lot more changes coming along.But I'm still around and enjoy the chance to connect when we can. Here I am.
