Earlier tonight I was catching up on what's been going on with an old online friend (We've been talking since we were both 13, we're 20 now, that's longer than I've known a lot of my friends offline) by reading her livejournal posts from the past year--I haven't kept up with them much the past year because of being super busy, etc, and we have only had the chance to talk a few times briefly recently for the same reason (plus we're on opposite sides of the world, so time differences make that tricky).
Anyway, as I was reading about all of the insane things that have happened in her life this past year, it was really startling in a lot of ways. First, nearly everything she had posted about and gone through, I had as well. Almost everything. Her life this past year and mine have mirrored each other almost perfectly. A fact like that is shocking enough in itself.
What was even more startling for me, however, was the fact that she was so open and honest about it. Yes, it's her livejournal--a record of her life, a diary of sorts. But at the same time, she knows that people read it, and encourages comments. It showed me that I'm either not as honest, or more proud than her. Or something. In a lot of ways, I was trying to avoid admitting everything that has gone on--even to myself. I have a diary--on paper, completely private, have kept it since 2nd grade--and my entries from the past year are pretty scant.
I'm not sure how much of my reasoning behind came from being in denial and thinking that everything would be different and far less depressing if I simply never recorded it, or from a desire to make sure that if someone DID somehow pick up and read my diary they would not be able to know everything and how bad it was.
As I said, it was a pretty shocking realization when I found out how closely our two lives resembled each other this past year.
In completely unrelated news, I would be the happiest linguistics nerd ever if I got this shirt:
http://www.cafepress.com/+phonetics_tshirt,463163260
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