Hello.

My name is Meg. This is my site.

Three days ago, this site passed an anniversary of sorts - two years of keeping a weblog, or rather, two years since the dated archive began - although I’ve had a personal site for much longer, which has in its time contained personal information, topical ponderings, longer rants and yes, even pictures of cats. Well, one cat, anyway. But no dates.

So was this milestone something to celebrate? Not especially. Tuesday saw the second anniversary of the advent of dated, sequential updates to the site, rather than over-writes - and I think there’s probably some kind of symbolism in there, somewhere.

A personal site, homepage, used to be a thing that represented you digitally, was you online. Written and overwritten and updated, to be constantly the most accurate, most relevant, most up-to-date representation of the self online. These are the things I like. This is my cat. These are my favourite links. This is a biography. This is me. This is me.

But this is a work in progress. There are no overwrites. This site just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and the story gets longer, as the days tick by. This isn’t me, definitively, and conclusively, absolutely - this is an ongoing representation, a docusoap, a voyeuristic keyhole into a life, unfolding. I carry my history with me. This is a work in progress.

If you think about it, the idea of creating an ongoing, updated, sequential, progressively expanding representation of self online is quite a strange activity. It makes the representation of Meg-ness that is seen on this page not just the sum of my experiences, but the recounting of them all, too.

Imagine if I were to carry around with me every outfit I’d ever owned, every piece of my history, every old experience. That wouldn’t be me. That would be me, with luggage. Does a full history make this a better representation? Do all these archives make it easier to build a picture of Meg-ness? Am I in fact bound by my archives, rather than liberated by them? So many words. Does all this luggage and no destination make me a refugee?

The temptation to live life at the moment in absolute statements is enormous. This is how things are. You cannot compare, contrast or remember. This is my truth, my absolute.

Hello. I’m Meg. This is my site.