Ready to Get Back to It

Whew!

Now I can get back to writing again.

The thing that has so vexed me about this AOL expulsion has been the lost writing time. For ten days, I spent every spare minute glued to my computer, feverishly dealing with the deadline, frantically yet painstakingly copying and pasting post after post, comments and all, from one blog to the other. But I wasn't doing the thing the blogs were created to do. I wasn't writing.

As I re-posted all my political rants leading up to, and following, the 2004 election, I was impressed anew with the clarity and passion of those posts. And I realized that I had things to say, soapboxes to mount, about the 2008 election and its cast of notorious characters…but there was no time. I had a job to do. Copy, paste, edit, post. Copy, paste, edit, post.

As I weighed the merits of every meme and "assignment" and pimp, I balanced the deadline against the preservation of the continuity of the community relationships. I wondered about the state of those relationships once we had all moved to new digs, who would follow and who would disappear; and I wanted to write about my fears and my hopes. But there was no time. Copy, paste, edit, post. Copy, paste, edit, post.

As I watched the names of each of my now long-standing journal 'friends" appear in the ranks of my commentors, I wanted to write stories about each of them and how I came to know them. But there was no time. Copy, paste, edit, post. Copy, paste, edit, post.

As I copied and pasted the entries alluding to my first disappointing interaction with the business I now own, I longed to write about the challenges and satisfactions of the hour, the day, the week… But there was no time. Copy, paste, edit, post. Copy, paste, edit, post.

I had labored my way through over 360 of 774 total posts when the word came down that AOL had figured out how to lower the lifeboats. I'm pretty sure I was one of the first over the side…

Perhaps the time was not wasted, as it was a fantastic journey back into the early days of j-land. And an encouraging review of my re-birth as a writer. But the worry and the stress and the fear of losing it all proved, in the end, to be entirely unnecessary. I feel as if I shaved minutes, if not days or weeks, off the end of my life for no reason whatsoever.

But, for now, I can get back to what this has been all about from the very first. Writing. Putting one word next to another and then another, and following them wherever they go.

I'm so ready for this…