and forever to say goodbye?
~anon

As many of you know, I'm not on here much. Actually, that's an understatement: I'm rarely, if ever, on DA. My senior year I was on DA ALL the time, literally. I would come home from school and spend at least a couple of hours commenting, reading, and writing. I made several online friends, people I will probably never meet in RL, but people I love and admire nonetheless. These are people I hung out with on Thursday nights via AIM and people I carried on comment-conversations with for hours.

At this point, you are probably asking, "Kathryn, what on earth are you trying to get at?" The fact is, friends, I feel that over this past year I have outgrown and moved on from DA. DA was my crutch, a place where I felt I had friends when I had very few RL friends. This idea was also backed by the knowledge that people online didn't have to pretend to like me if they didn't want to. However, I have come to realize that friends cannot be counted in pageviews and number of favorites.

This past year has forced me to branch out, move out of my comfort zone and make many RL friends. I still struggle with wondering if people actually like me and are really my friends, but most of that is a learned reaction from things that have happened in the past. But I have discovered that what is learned can be unlearned.

For a while, I thought that I would get back into the swing of being on DA again, but at this point, I don't see that happening. School and work keep me busy, and I no longer have hours to waste on DA. I'm not throwing DA away; rather, I'm putting DA into a photo album. A good reminder of the past, but just a snapshot of what used to be.

I still want to keep in touch with all of my online friends, but DA is no longer the place for me to do that. If you want to message me, I'll send you my email address or we can be facebook friends. I'm not deleting my DA account, but I am going to stop feeling guilty because I'm not posting my writing. At this point, all I can do is hope that you understand.

All the love in the universe,

Kathryn

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning. ~Ivy Baker Priest