six years / by Katherine Hajer

Yesterday The Eyrea celebrated its sixth anniversary! I feel like I should be baking a cake or something. It would have been more traditional to celebrate the fifth anniversary when it happened last year, but I was preoccupied with other things. Typical.

That first post is strange to read now, because it's talking about a very different cyberspace. At the time, I just wanted to get out of Facebook. Joining Facebook remains one of my biggest social media regrets, not because anything overly embarrassing happened, but just because it was a colossal waste of time. I didn't connect with any old friends, and most of the people I did connect with were, quite frankly, annoying. Since I haven't heard from them at all since, I can say that.

It's funny how desperate that first post was to prove there was life outside of Facebook (like the part reassuring readers we could still play Scrabulous).

Nowadays I just don't care. My network connections are much better now, both in the number of people and in their quality. People are much more interesting and pleasant when you're learning about them outside of 80s sitcom quizzes and Farmville. I'm more comfortable blogging now — the early counts of 18 posts per year have grown to 1-2 posts per week. Best of all, communities like Friday Flash are easier to find and connect up with outside of the big blue cage.

I like the blog format. I like how it lends itself well to short essays and flash fiction, the two forms I'm most comfortable composing in. I like the spirit of community it fosters. I like that I get to pick my own damn colour scheme.

Thank you to everyone who has dropped by and read something, and especially to those who leave comments. I hope you enjoyed the read.

More to come...