TheBanyanTree: My, how time flies!

[JMoney]

March 1st 1997, exactly three years before the doors closed; that's when I
sent my first post to Spoon and began to enjoy the privilege of membership
in a community full of interesting, funny, good-hearted people whose stories
of life have enriched me, whose acceptance has helped me to accept myself
and whose presence, no matter how virtual, put an end to my isolation.

That last might sound a little dramatic, but it's true.  I was dying slowly
of superficiality.  People interested in the world of ideas are not found on
every street corner.  They will not necessarily be living next door.  And
even if they are, how can you tell?  Not by looking, or asking to borrow
their lawnmower or a cup of sugar.  Who will open up their heart to you over
a glass of wine before going in to hear a presentation on risk management?
Who in the workplace, having discovered a matter of significance dressed up
as a mundane event, will then discuss their discovery with colleagues during
the lunch break or at morning tea? Is it even safe any longer to try?

No.  You need to draw from a wider pool than the merely local to find those
who not only think but are willing to express their thoughts honestly,
openly and with respect for the right of other people to have a different
opinion.  How interesting it is that a tool originally designed to ensure
that messages will get through in a time of war has become the means by
which a community of story tellers from all over the world can come together
in a place where, by agreement, warring is not allowed.

Thank you to all who made it possible for the meeting to continue despite
the loss of our first home.

And to those who might think that I have a remarkable memory for dates; I
don't.  Years ago, my first internet enabled computer's limitations were
becoming such a hindrance to the work I was trying to do that I had to
replace it.  Before passing it on to the children I made copies of some of
my correspondence and put the pages away in a filing cabinet.  Yesterday I
pulled the folder out and found a copy of my first post, complete with the
date.

Reading it again after seven years was a strangely unsettling experience
because I am no longer the woman who wrote that piece.  Back then I had yet
to feel the crush of the wringer through which I would be dragged backwards,
though I was beginning to sense its pull.  And now, from the other side of
that experience, after all the subsequent remodelling of my mangled dreams
and expectations into shapes more consistent with what is both possible and
desirable, I find myself wondering I've become too content.  I'll have to
wait and see.

Janice