Much Spring Cleaning is occurring... of course, there are hideous side effects. Like trips down Memory Lane. Join me, if you will...

Well okay, I'm not going to regale you with tales of my adventurous youth--plight and boss filled though they may be (LOLRPGHUMOR)--but I will say that I've gone through a terrific share of nonsense. Thankfully, I give myself very good advice, though I very seldom follow it. Or so sayeth the journals I decimated this lovely afternoon.

10 years, one garbage bag, and a feeling of relief I can't quite describe. It's as though I can finally die peacefully, which won't be happening anytime soon (take THAT, world!). I like deleting my online journals every year. It gives me a sense of closure despite the fact that they're archived somewhere in the bowels of the Internet, and that's a great thing. But here in the non-digital swamp that is my quaint studio apartment, a pile of journals and "poetry books" dating back to 1998 sat lingering, reminding me regularly and scathingly of a past best remembered in a dusty saloon after one too many shots of whiskey. You get the gist: dramatic, painful, heartbreaking... pointless. Even the most carefully crafted piece of work can mean very little after one gains a bit more perspective. Plus I said "fuck" way too many times.

So why the long-winded text version of my personal serenity over destroying physical evidence of a youth squandered? A long-winded generation assessment equating to mere personal opinion, of course!

None too long ago, some stupid little brats beat the hell out of a girl who dissed 'em on the Internet. And... drum roll please... big surprise! It happened in Florida, where children are basically left to rot in their personal angst while the wealthy build their precious castles by the ocean. The actions of those girls and their parents shocked the nation, while the people of this fine state blew up and/or blew it off. I for one saw middle school flash before my eyes, remembering the treacherous walk to next period while yet another peer was getting jumped by five kids as others cheered. Just glad it wasn't me... that time.

Here though, I see this amazing difference between then and now. The desire for permanent damage can be so readily achieved with a few clicks. The whole damn world can watch Susie Pepsquad get her pigtails ripped out of her head, and the attackers get the effect they aimed for regardless of whether or not they get punished. No more do we have to struggle to recall if it was Timmy or Tommy who lost his vision after a rock was thrown at him by a pissed off classmate. We have it on film. Even if you forget his name, you can always search the content.

I'm not proud of most of what I wrote when I went through those awful times. The tone was infinitely childish, the grammar was terrible, and my choices in names for people were decidedly lacking in creativity. Not something I felt like sharing with the world, and that was fine. I didn't have to. It wasn't culturally important enough to consider. So as I look at this garbage bag full of the shredded memories of my darker years, I can really only smile. There's finally some room for the good. If that's what can separate me from the darn kids these days, it's something to be thankful for.