End of an era

Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come.

I started this blog in April 2005. The Other Half had suggested it as a way of calming my neurotic, over-active brain. I was living with Small Person after leaving the Ex six months previously. I had a lot going on - there were enormous changes in my life that I need to process, and blogging helped. It helped a huge amount. I talked through stuff that bothered me, ranted about all the stupid little things that irritate me on a daily basis. I bared my soul, I talked bollocks and I made some very good friends.

Over the last couple of weeks or so, as I've sat down to write, I've come to realise that there isn't anything I need to say. I've kept on banging out the odd post, but it hasn't flowed like it used to. Whatever was driving me to spill out six hundred frenzied words on what I had for tea, and why do people leave the labels on their shoes, and aren't people annoying...well, it's calmed down. I feel more able to deal with the things life throws at me, and the things that have happened to make me into the unstable fuckup you've been kind enough to listen to for the last year. It's weird, and this lack of headless-chickenness has bothered me, so I've thought about it and I think I've figured it out.

I'm happy.

So there you go. It's been fun, infuriating and heartbreaking in equal measure. Some of the things I've written have made me laugh out loud, some have had me sobbing like a baby. All of them have been an exercise in understanding who and what I am. I don't like some of the things I've learned, and there's a way to go before I can even begin to describe myself as at peace, but I'm getting there.

I'm leaving the blog up, so you all get to keep your links. I want to thank everyone who's dropped by and felt moved to comment. I want to thank the lurkers, the accidental tourists and all the people so obsessed with Gloria Hunniford's hairstyle that they have boosted my daily traffic by ooh, four hits or so. But it's done*. Time to go. Everyone out of the pool.

Carry on.

* I do of course reserve the right to miss blogging and start again in a month's time. Probably.