22 Years Ago

I actually remember the moment precisely. I was on my brother’s computer, in his room, fooling around online. I had been staying at his place since I got back from my year in India a few weeks earlier. I was still in a kind of reverse culture shock haze.

A few “Powered by Blogger” badges on the sites I was looking at tipped me over the edge. I headed over to blogger.com, signed up to figure out what it was, and added this “weblog” thing to my young website.

This blog has now been in activity for 22 years, and counting. It’s not the oldest weblog around (or even the oldest French-language weblog) but it’s clearly one of the survivors of that era.

I feels crazy to think I’ve been doing this for so long. There have been a few breaks. Twitter and Facebook have changed what I write and don’t write here. But I’ve always — and probably always will be — a blogger at heart.

What is it about?

Sharing. Hoping that others can get something out of what I’ve seen. Thinking out loud — for me, and for those who might read. Leaving a trace of what has been. Trying to have an influence on the world around me.

I feel sad that the golden years of blogging are behind us, that The Good Decade (h/t Shelley and Jeneane) is gone and will never come back, that this incredible epoch has slipped through our fingers for good. But I can keep on upholding the spirit of those times in my little corner of the web, for as long as I have words to give.

Originally published at Climb to the Stars.