Ten years

I noticed today that my 23rd birthday is in a week. I began writing online when I was 13. It was a way to vent insecurities, anger, and other feelings I had toward people in my life. From an early age, the internet functioned not just as an interactive library but also as a way to prove that I am not alone in my thoughts, hobbies, and interests — to counter how I have felt in my offline, “real life.”

My early life experiences gave me a certain maturity, self-reliance, and critical thought process that I didn’t see reflected in the majority of my peers until at least high school. There weren’t many (if any) people my own age to bounce my thoughts off of and be understood. Even now, I’ll have a good experience and marvel at how nice it feels to be grokked.

Within the past ten years the internet grown from being a novelty to becoming a necessity. All of the cringe-worthy writing from my early teenage years were scattered across multiple sites which no longer exist. Twitter has replaced my original outlets for venting, and has become a place to throw my inner monologue and all the profanity that comes with it, in 140 characters or less.