Mirrorball

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few weeks staring inwards, at places that previously were difficult to even get close to. An awful lot of these are inextricably linked to long form works which, it is now apparent, served purpose not simply as narratives. Amongst these, amazingly, was a selection of work which I thought only existed as A4 documents. This weekend I was able to find saved versions of everything, which means the paper versions can finally be consigned to recycling.

I wonder, should the files also get deleted?

It is great to think that sometimes, the answer to everything is just pretending that the bad stuff does not exist. There are undoubtedly moments when doing so is useful, but in other cases, ignoring the past is unhelpful. These bits of writing show up some major shortcomings in my processes, that’s for damn sure, but they are undoubtedly useful demonstrations of what is done best. For every negative there is also undoubtedly a positive.

Deleting them frees up hard disk space, sure. Re-writing them is a waste of time and effort, undoubtedly. However, and probably most importantly, acknowledging what they represent in a personal chronology is absolutely vital. So, I’ve gone back and re-read them all, returning brain to a time where everything changed forever: my fist pregnancy and the birth of my son. On reflection, I wasn’t ready for any of it, and this probably has a lot to do with what happened subsequently.

I’ll be discussing this undoubtedly in counselling going forward.

Maybe one day, if the urge strikes me, these stories will be shared again: that’s the irony in all of this, of course. Once upon a time everything existed on the Internet. I even have the self-designed webpages where all these things were housed. However, that was a lifetime ago. Maybe, if you are really smart, you can find the places where some of these stories still remain.

We all have to start somewhere.