Now I'm Just Like Me

 I went back and read much that I had written some 18 years ago (I think it's about 18--don't make me actually calculate it) and was surprised to find I'm still the same person.  I had thought I'd changed a lot--I was sure I'd changed a lot.  I AM sure I changed a lot.  But, well, not so much.  My writing style is still the same. You recognize it, don't you?  Sort of turned in on itself.  Obsessive, even.  And not like you, most likely.  (There's a change--I'm questioning the whole premise!)  Other people write about actual things in the world.  Their favorite music, their friends, what they did.  By 'other' I might mean 'normal'.  Normal people like you who have a life.  

Oh, I have a life too.  But it's less what I blog about.  That's not the direction I'm facing when I write.  Nor was it the direction I faced 18 years ago.  I don't know what it would be like to be that kind of person.  I could pretend and tell you the story of my day.  But those events WEREN'T the story of my day.  For me the story was what I was thinking while they happened.

And this probably has something to do with my blog's lack of readers.  They're not like me.  I'm not like them.Who'd have thought it would take me 18 years to figure that out. You could read that as me not participating in my life, but that would be wrong.  I'm very much in it.  Sometimes more than I can stand.  It's hard being alive.  I hope that's not a surprise to you.  I rarely hear people saying that, though.  Maybe it's considered rude.

That's not something, 18 years younger me would have said, is it.  Maybe it is.  I'm pretty sure he thought it.