early this morning
I'm not quite sure what they make of me at Yet Another Cycling Forum, or what I'm expecting. After stopping by to post in a thread where my name came up I expected… something. Just a PM'd Hello would've been nice; a barfing smiley less so, but still a kind of Howdy. Was it shock and awe holding their tongues? Or fear and loathing?
Going over to the forum I midwifed* and seeing the old names mixes a blender of feelings: sadness, nostalgia, long dead anger. Mostly sorrow. Perhaps seeing me gives them a similar cocktail of emotions, if they have any feelings about 'us' at all. I tend to think most people are like this guy:
It's not my first visit. I always go away strangely unsatisfied. Most of this, to be painfully honest, is the lack of warm vibes. Then there's the sense of loss – though of what I am unsure, as theoretically you can't miss what you never had.
I try to acknowledge truths, no matter how hard. A truth I took away from the disintegration of acf came from Yacf co-'founder' Charlotte, who once wrote that the forum into which I'd poured so much of my thought and effort was merely a convenient way station (demoting me to what, an attendant?). If I've sung the blues it's because she was right.
We've all moved on since then. Or have we? Reading the comments immediately preceding mine, and between the lines, and listening to the sound of silence on other threads, I'm not so sure.
* or fucked into existence, if you prefer
