Conclusion #1:
This site is about me. Don’t forget the crucial “about”. It’s a little word, but it makes a big difference. I am not my website.

Conclusion #2:
I love the internet. I love the medium and the possibilities and the potential and the people.

Conclusion #3:
Writing will always be my first love.

Conclusion #4:
I need to reconcile the things I love in order to be happy.

Conclusion #5:
If you are trying to read between the lines, don’t bother. There’s nothing there but white space.

I’m back.

As you may have been aware, I’ve been thinking. I needed to take a step back, reconcile the public and private sides of this site, remind myself why I’ve been doing it, and for whom. Get a bit of perspective.

What kicked off this whole thinking thing, then? See, the thing is, over the weekend, I deleted a post. While that may not seem like a very big thing, it scared the shit out of me, because it was something I’d never done before on this site, never felt the need to do before. When I started the weblog portion of this site at the beginning of last year, just as when I started the rest of this site, five and a half years ago, I set out doing it for myself. As time passed, I was still doing it for myself. And then suddenly, on Sunday night, I realised that I couldn’t write what I really really wanted to write. I posted and re-posted and edited and re-posted again, and still I wasn’t satisfied. Why? Because I had this niggling feeling that somebody who read it might look into it to try and figure out what I really meant, might misinterpret and over-analyse, might think it was about them, when in fact, it probably wasn’t. Not any someone in particular, just someone. Anyone. So I deleted it. And then sat very still. And then I got scared.

It became clear to me that audience consideration had become more important than Meg on this site. And that worried me.

I’m not a magazine or a newpaper, or any other kind of product. I don’t have a target demographic. I don’t have an audience to attract or appeal to. I don’t make anything financially from this site, and I never expected to. Just like thousands of other people across the web, I am a personal content provider, because I love it, and because I can’t not write, I can’t not be involved, I can’t not tell stories, can’t not experiment and tinker with the medium. Bricolage of the self? Oh, how very academic and wanky. Shut up, Meg.

So who is this mystical, intangible audience that petrified me so hugely? It’s you. It’s anyone. Any of the people who read this site and who feel a connection, however tenuous, with me through my words, my rambling anecdotes, my occasional humour.

Woah. Stop right there. Hang on a moment. Some of you know me, some of you don’t. Some of you think you do, because you’ve read about my little life here, or have met me once or twice. But let’s get one thing straight. I am not this website. This site is not me. I am not defined entirely by the words and stories and pictures within these pages, just as I’m not defined by my job, my postcode, my sexual history or my hair colour, either. I’m a composite of all facets of my life, history and experiences, indefinable and incorrigible, and I am gradually becoming.

That’s it. The sentence ends there. There is no more. There is no object. There is no goal. My life is unfolding - just as yours is. A work in constant progress. Some of it is captured sequentially and digitally - and publically - here, but until you’ve heard me speechless with laughter, seen me eat peas with a fork, felt me beside you, shrugging down to hide under my coat in a scary movie, however pathetic and obvious the storyline, watched me struggle to stay awake at four in the morning at the bottom of a bottle of Madagascan Merlot, and a million other tiny things, you don’t know me.

Now don’t feel hurt and sleighted. This is nothing personal. Of course I know that people read this stuff, and of course there is an aspect of audience consideration - always has been. But what scared me most was the lack of balance between the personal and the public. It suddenly felt like I’d somehow invited 1500 strangers around to dinner, and they were all laughing at the bookshelves and rooting through my knicker drawer. Metaphorically speaking, of course. It’s all about balance. It’s about making sure that you know what happens when you throw the doors of your house open. It’s about perspective.

So what does this mean? Invariably, it means that I have spent the last few days navel-gazing, but not in public, for a change. As well as pulling 12 hour days at work, and being tired, stressed and hormonal, I’ve been thinking. Sometimes in the quiet. Sometimes with music (Miles Davis, mostly). Sometimes on the train, or just in bed, staring at the ceiling. But I’ve been thinking. And mostly, what I’ve been thinking is this:

I love doing this. I love writing. I love telling stories. I love the random contact I get from this site. I love hearing stories. I love people reaching out and saying quite simply “yes, like that.” I love tinkering and experimenting with words, and experiences, and code. I love the fact that I’ve been doing this for ages, and I’m not bored of it. I love that it’s not a linklog or a diary or a journal or any of that. It’s just me, my world, a life, unfolding on the page, in all its gloriously weird randomness. I love that some of you love it. I love doing it, and so I’m going to continue.

Writing is my first love. That’s another thing that’s become clear over the last few months - if you’ve been reading, you may have noticed a shift in the content of these pages in recent months, towards storytelling and observation and life. This is what I enjoy, and this is what I want to keep doing. If you stick with it, you’ll see this transformation continuing, I hope, in coming weeks. There are plans afoot…but it would be premature to talk about them now.

So here we are. There will always be thinking going on. But this is a new beginning, of sorts. Welcome. It’s good to be back.