Better By Nightfall

This weblog was founded a year ago after I felt the need to delete my old blog that had been up and running for a year and a half.

Created on November 2^nd 2002, my old blog, Twisted Clarity (TC), was a high dive into the world of blogging. I was introduced to blogging by my great friend, Veneliza, who had created her own blog for herself and her friends to keep in contact. Thinking it was interesting and cool, I started my own blog, made it public, and wrote about whatever I felt. This included various topics related to school, most of which, during my Senior year of high school, centered around yearbook and all the stress and woe that seemed to follow it. I also detailed the beginning of the loss of friendship between my then good friend, Adriana. Also, in a rage of emotions and anger, I aired two revealing conversations I had with my ex-girlfriend, Ana.

And I posted and said a lot of things on my blog that I probably shouldn't have back then. Words of disgust, pain, uncertainty, doubt, and hatred. I watched my words become a contentious point of poison between friends and realized the dangers of having a blog. But I also realized the good and joys of having a blog: the feeling of some sort of community, the ability to vent, discuss, browse the web of written emotions and thoughts.

I continued TC halfway into my Freshmen year of college before I decided to delete it and start a new one.

The deletion of TC was, in many ways, liberating and practical. After my winter break back in Germany, I realized that I was no longer attached to the world of the past that was high school and all the sophomoric behavior that came along with it. I also didn't want to be associated with the rush of teen blogs that seem to have flooded the blogosphere. But most importantly, I didn't want to keep ties with a lot of the negativity and emptiness that high school held for me. I also didn't enjoy the fact that various people around my dorm read my blog last year and used the information within it as some sort of conversational advantage. (I also wanted to get rid of some stalkers that recently appeared on my blog.)

Initially, deleting TC was hard. I remember my hesitation to press "the button," but I did it. I saved all the old posts and layouts from that chapter in my life, but honestly, I haven't looked back on it. Sure, I've reflected on my past, but I haven't gone back to try and relive it. I haven't touched the "Old Blog" folder since it was created.

I moved on.

Two months after the deletion of TC, I created this blog, Pardoned Combustication (PC), on March 1^st 2004 as a rebirth of expression. Initially it started off as a poetry/prose only blog, but eventually became a blog of stories, thoughts, critiques, conversations, and, most recently, photos.

But it's been so much more than that. It's become a testament of the change that I've experienced and shared. A reflection of growth and learning. An expansion from the world I used to surround myself with to a world of limitless thoughts undefined and unconfined by the past.

So here's to change, experience, growth, learning, and expansion. A year of stories, thoughts, critiques, conversations, and photos. It's been a lesson in learning, and a journey wrapped in growth, all of it shared with those who've read my blog and those who will.

Happy 1st Anniversary, Pardoned Combustication!