Stepping stones of the dead selves

“In these ephemeral electronic pages, you will get the unparalleled chance to play peeping-tom into the daily trials and tribulations of a Canadian newspaper man!”

I’ve been re-reading my first posts on Livejournal. The first post – September 7th, 2001, very clearly marked the start of a new stage in my life. velvetpage and I had just moved into our first house (where we still live) and were talking about having our first child. My first book had just been released.

I was still a reporter, then, and would be for almost another year. It was a long, long time before I stopped referring to myself as a journalist when people asked me what I did. It’s only in the last several months that I’ve taken to calling myself a tech writer.

Some things haven’t changed. I’m still eating far too many breakfast specials in far too many greasy spoons. I’m still playing RPGs whenever and wherever possible. It is curious how much has changed, though, and mostly for the better. Perhaps the biggest change has been the wonderful expansion in society and friends that we’ve experienced. Less visible, but no less important, has been the evolution of my relationship with velvetpage, and our mutual development as parents and individuals. She continues to surprise me and delight me.

I have changed a great deal in some regards. I am much less conservative, and much less conflicted about how I view the universe, and my place in it. In university, one of my professors told us we should strive to “pound one golden nail into the roof of Heaven.” I agree, and I also sometimes hear a line from Mary Poppins (No, really) about how a man should “carve his niche in the edifice of Time”.

I guess I’ve done that, in my own way.

I never expected Livejournal to last as long as it did, or my journal to last as long as it did. It has been an interesting seven years, and I am curious to see what kind of person I’ll be in 2015.