Wow. What a wonderful experience it is to come back after a year, post two paragraphs on Common Craft and have a group of friends welcome me back into the fold. Thanks so much for the welcome home comments. I'm still getting my feet under me in terms of writing for Common Craft, but I'll be back in full force soon.
For the rest of this week, I'm going to put a lot of effort into getting our TWINF travel blog ready to be frozen in time this coming Saturday, the 6th. After Saturday, there will be no more new posts, comments or photos. Between now and then, I have a number of posts lined up that will hopefully help us end with a bang.
I have to say, it's quite strange and a little scary to freeze a blog in time after using it to document something like a year of travel. It makes for a nice little package I suppose, but there is no continuity. The conversation just ends. I will continue to change and mature, but TwinF will stay the same - a snapshot of our lives, perspectives and values. This lack of continuity is what makes me nervous. I'm used to looking back at old blog posts and saying "boy was I naive" or whatever. In those cases it was fine because I understood (and had faith my readers understood) the continuity that accounts for past indiscretions. It's like a normal blog can always say "that was me then, but this is me now - I've changed."
TwinF captures, in vivid detail, how we reacted to the world, how we dealt with foreign cultures and food, where we were weak, where we were strong and where we were fools. It revealed more about us as people than we ever have before and perhaps ever will. When it becomes frozen, all those experiences will be out there without any continuity. I won't be able to say "I was wrong" or "I have changed". TwinF will just be what it is - a year long snapshot of how we reacted at the time.