I first started blogging at [Redacted] in, I believe, October of 2008. My brother had pointed the place out to me a few years earlier, and at that point my offline social life here in Mordor had collapsed, so I checked it out.

I stayed up all night when Obama won, and shared the elation, less because I was all that sure about Obama than because it was so catching, and because it felt so nice, being part of something. Being part of anything.

It took me three years before I was shown the door. During that time, I was doing a lot of difficult processing, and it certainly showed. I scared some people, others were supportive. I was admittedly all over the place.

I wasn't surprised that I got the axe. But, like so many, it never occurred to me how easy it is to get lost on the Internet, how difficult it can be to find community. I was so, so angry about being banned. How dare anyone take that from me? How dare they silence my voice?

But I moved on, as one must. I joined other blogs, I talked to other people. I learned some more about Interneting, which is really a kind of language of its own. I told a correspondent friend once that trying to communicate this way is like trying to fly by paperclipping feathers to your shoulders. You spend about eighty percent of your time fiddling around with the paper clips, and about another ten percent licking your wounds when you crash. So you learn to get very, very good with paper clips.

I learned to be a better debater, and to spot debating fallacies. I learned that there are things that happen on the Internets that you will never understand, and that you can decide not to let this be a problem. I learned a lot about boundaries.

And much of what I learned is terribly sad. There are a lot of lonely people on the Internet. A lot of unstable people, a lot of housebound people. A lot of vulnerable people, but also a fair portion of people with an unfortunate predilection towards bullying. All thrown into one big messy pot, bubbling and spattering with the occasional explosion flinging the broth onto the flames.

The Internet has its problems, but it is still a sort of miracle, and what is saddest to me is how toxic it can become. How badly people can be hurt and how quickly forgotten. It's become DIY mental health care in a country that doesn't care if you're crazy, as long as you don't expect any help.

The lack of continuity is maddening. So imagine my surprise to discover this blog, quietly simmering on the back burner, and now knocking at the front door all these people I've only been able to see through a glass darkly, all this time, right here, more every day, writing, where I can too. People who in some cases I never forgot, and many others whose names I remember.

I'd given up on this ever happening. And now all I want to do is say yes, yes; we can do this! We're all better at this now. It can work and not turn toxic, it can be done. It really can, and if we can do this, who knows what else we can do?