Can't Go Home Again

So, the last three days have been rather eventful. I was a panelist on a radio show (Listen) Monday, I had a job interview Tuesday, and I had to give a presentation at work today. Throughout the week I had one idea when I got past everything, and even before that I had an idea of what I would do the next time a bunch of stuff actually started happening:



I'd go back to Xanga. Even though I've been here for a couple of years and I write a lot on Facebook - I don't double-dip much, so the content is pretty unique in both spots - I always considered Xanga to be my blogging home and I really wanted to go back.

So all this stuff happens and now I finally get back to Xanga. I'm ready to write my first entry in almost a year and a half (it would've been a year and a half tomorrow) and I find out...

...that Xanga, as I knew it, has fallen completely by the wayside. It's been (or is being) restarted, but it's not going to be the same. Most of the people I 'met' through Xanga have left, although thankfully I've been able to stay in touch with - or re-discover, in some cases - them on FB and Twitter.

Xanga was the first social network (I'll consider it one, even though it's really a blogging community) in which I really met people I didn't know. I hadn't signed on to MySpace yet, Facebook was still only at Harvard and a few other schools, and CollegeClub - in its day - was mostly about people I already knew or people they knew, as Tallahassee isn't but so big.

More importantly than that, Xanga was where I bared my soul through my years in the doctoral program in political science. It was where I went to vent about being the only black person in the program my first year. It was also where people saw me vent: a view that started the chain of events which would lead me to leave the program, but that's another matter. It's where I discussed the joy of getting into a new relationship. She actually started writing on Xanga for a while. So did one of my best friends. They didn't post much that I saw, but their signing up was just part of their seeing how big Xanga was to me.

When I started my Xanga it was supposed to be "life onscreen". It was supposed to be a diary. Real, raw, unfiltered, just any and everything that came to mind ended up on that screen. That's why I started to protect it as I moved through life (especially after the political science experience). I didn't tell people about it. As a matter of fact, I don't think I even mention it on my FB page anymore (I used to have a link).

Part of the process in finding myself after my last relationship ended was to write, but to write about worldly matters. I started a string of notes on FB four and a half years ago. The title is an acronym of my first name (which, to prove a point, I freely shared on Xanga...but with so many changes in the world and people wanting to Google others; I keep it hidden everywhere except FB). I put up Volume 230 Sunday.

I came here in 2011 because most of my Xanga people were gone and I had thoughts I couldn't get out on FB. Now that I think about it, my hiatus in writing about personal matters - especially as I was going through the post-relationship blues in 2009 - probably had something to do with the small bout of depression I had in 2010.

After getting through that, I made quite a few changes in my life and started on the arc in which I am still currently located. There have been lulls, and those lulls precluded my return to Xanga. "Nothing exciting is happening: no one wants to hear about me simply going to work and coming home, especially when session's not in". I stayed away, even after getting the job I have now (the one I referenced earlier would be an addition, not a replacement). Still wanted more excitement, and on the day I finally got it...

...I went home to find that it was not there. There's a building, but I don't recognize it. My neighbors are gone. That excitement I felt has been replaced by an unshakable sadness. It doesn't matter how the show went, or how the interview went, or how the presentation went.

My home is gone. I can find most of my neighbors - at least those who stayed until the end - in other places, so I'm happy about that.

I've just picked up the last of my belongings (literally: I downloaded an archive of my blog just before typing this sentence). I've come to the realization that the next time I close out of Xanga, I will never return. I didn't even have this feeling when I left home to head to FAMU for undergrad.

I will always miss Xanga, and I will always remember it. It will hold a special place in my heart that no other blog or social network will ever have, mainly because I can't do anywhere else what I did there.

Of all the posts and entries I've written, the only one that has made me more emotional was the one in which I talked about my grandmother. I'll probably never write anything else that comes close.

I'll write "what was supposed to be in that Xanga entry" tomorrow. I just can't do it today.

Today has become the day to say...

...goodbye.