One Last Post Before I Go

How dramatic is that.

It feels silly to do anything but slip away quietly into the night after I haven’t posted here for so long anyway, but I also wanted to honor almost twelve years of blogging with a goodbye of some kind.

I’ve loved having this blog. So much.

I write more now than I ever have since I’ve had children, but none of it hits the blog anymore. Instead, it all gets packaged up neatly in a weekly letter to my mom, and it hurries off from my house to hers, where she reads it out loud to my dad at supper time every Monday night.

I don’t have time for both the letter and the blog, and the letter is invisible to online predatorial eyes (or even just snoopy ones), so if I have to pick between the letter and the blog, I’ll pick the letter every time.

I’ve spent the last eight months meticulously removing my boys’ faces, names, and information from social media and my blog.

It’s been such a good run. But.

I miss the way the internet used to be. Where even a blog that anyone could access felt safe enough to post pictures of my children, to tell tidbits about our lives, to be even slightly vulnerable and transparent. It doesn’t feel safe anymore.

So I’ve slowly and laboriously done my best to make my children disappear online.

The best part of deciding not to share them anymore has been going back and deleting everything. Looking back at all the cute posts and fun comments. Remembering their interests at different stages. Seeing their darling faces at different ages. Admiring my own handiwork in their birthday cakes, pretty religiously posted on the date of their actual birthday.

But the bad part of all of that is if I could do it, so could who knows who else. And what else.

In an internet world of predators and AI . . . no thanks.

WHY DID THEY HAVE TO RUIN THE INTERNET? Oh, for the days of Google+ and a quiet Facebook where you literally only saw what your real-life friends were doing, nothing else.

I wasn’t sure if I’d keep blogging. I kind of wanted to keep that option open. It actually sounded like a fun challenge to share only faceless pictures, to tell only untraceable stories, to be boring and quiet to the world at large and interesting and “updating” to those who actually know the faces behind the words.

That’s how I started. I thought maybe that was how I’d finish.

But I don’t post anymore anyway, and there was so much still here even after The Great Purge that made me feel vulnerable and uncomfortable.

So it’s gone now. All but the very first post.

And soon that will be gone, too.

I just wanted to say goodbye.

And thank you.

Thank you so much to those of you who faithfully read here and engaged here and commented here. It meant (means) so much to me.

Thank you, Dad, for getting this blog all set up for me. It was one of the best gifts you've ever given me.

Thank you, Eric, for reading every single post and for being so encouraging and for loving to read the things I write. You’re the very best, and you’ve made my life more beautiful and more extraordinary than I ever could have imagined.

And of course thank You to the One Who has given me every day of this beautiful life, whether I write about it or not.

To God be the glory.

And with that . . . farewell, This Extraordinary Life.