A little over two years ago I started this blog.  At first I posted almost daily and then life and general frustration with all the drama on the interwebz got in the way.  I haven’t posted as much as I would’ve liked, but I am closing in on 500 posts, so not bad.

Over that time I’ve bookmarked blogs of folks who posted a lot on my blog or interacted with me in some other way.  I’m not big on interacting with people through their blogs–there’s a small part of me that’s a tinfoil-hat-wearing paranoid nutso who doesn’t like giving up control of my words.  But I do circle by every once in a while and see what those folks are up to.

And then of course there are all those other blogs I’ve bookmarked over time.  Writers, editors, agents, etc. who someone linked to and I found interesting enough to bookmark and maybe read again sometime later.

Well, it just occurred to me today how few of those original folks are left.  One of the first people who ever commented on my blog had just started blogging when I did.  She only made it a month or two before stopping.  A few others blogged passionately day in and day out and now they’ve gone silent.

There’s nothing wrong with that.  I can understand it.  If your blog doesn’t evolve into an active community blogging can sometimes feel like shouting into the void.  And if you don’t understand that it’s not about you but the vast array of choices out there and the lack of discoverability, it can start to hurt to blog.

(Another reason it’s good that I’m a supremely arrogant person….)

And life can get in the way.  Sometimes the reason someone starts blogging ends.  They wanted to be a writer but slowly move away from it.  They start as an agent’s assistant and then move on to grad school and have nothing else to say about agenting.  Or they move from being an agent to a writer.  Or their parent dies.  They get divorced.  They lose their job.  They get a new one.

Life changes.  We evolve and move on.

It’s interesting…because the blogs don’t go away even though the people have.  In my little list of bookmarks I have blogs that only ever had a handful of posts, but now those posts are there.  Forever.  Hollow remnants of abandoned dreams.  Memories of who someone used to be.