"I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lined in and loved and where all your yesteryear's are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better our because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance."
~Beryl Markham
West With The Night
Get ready to laugh. And believe me, it's okay if you do. You see, I just pulled the plug on my old AOL account. That's right. As of today... 2019... I pulled the plug. Why it took so long to unsubscribe from AOL, an ISP that's been in a metaphoric persistent vegetative state since I officially left AOL Journals in protest, in 2005, I don't know. I know I am a procrastinator. I am also hopelessly sentimental. Both those things could be the reason. Or maybe I am just lazy. Shrug. Maybe it's all of the above. I don't know.
The AOL post that you see above was technically my last post, and I only did that one because a few of the AOL blog authors that remained after the big banner ad scandal, asked some of we originals to comeback for a limited reunion, and I didn't have the heart to not participate. AOL had recently decided to do away with the journals community altogether, so it with this last post, that I finally let go of the first blog/journals community I had belonged to and I never looked back.
I didn't really miss that blogging platform, after I got acquainted with Blogger. It was roughly the same, but it contained a lot more choices for customization. It wasn't long before I was on my way. It was a new beginning, which in retrospect I think I needed. I made some good friends on AOL and fortunalety they ended up on Blogger too, and I was able to continue a couple projects that we had started in the other community. The Round Robin photo chalenge was the most near and dear to my heart. I enjoyed it very much, but after a whileI just ran out of steam. It ran its course.
But I digress. AOL went through more than one change, as it found itself floundering with almost no idea who or what it wanted to be. It closed all the featured that made it user and community friendsly, right around the time it figured out that it made more money as an internet billboard. Ad revenue replaced customer loyalty. Eventually, it went completely free for members, and that was fine, if you didn't mind putting up with ads everywhere on the service. And I didn't. It was free to keep everything in place, so no big deal.
Well, last year things changed again, and now it costs $4.99 a month for access to basic features. I paid the cost for a few months, and then finally decided, let go. I would still have the email accounts, although I am in the process of moving those screen names to GMAIL. When that task is completed, who knows, maybe I will simply pretend it never existed to begin with. When I close a door, I like for the door to remain shut, and as I grow older, I am finding it to be the best policy for lots of stuff.
Never look back. Just keep walking toward the sun. And I think I kinda love making this change right now, what with spring being about new beginnings and all. There is a proper symmetry to it.
That time I came home from a day of photography, to find Dylan had got on my desk and typed HELP into the AOL search, about a dozen times. I guess it was the cat version of yelling... STRANGER DANGER!
~Me
