You all know the story of my journal by now, I'm sure: it was first called "The Writing on the Wall", and my first entry was a few brief sentences about the tragic Columbine shootings. After that, my journal moved slowly, with brief, blog-like entries, but eventually I just started writing and writing and writing. Most of the entries were complete and utter bull, but I always felt better for having written it all down. I wrote about boredom, frustration, anger, and even had a special section in the "Afterthoughts" for road rage! Yikes!

Thankfully, five years later, I no longer feel the need to write about being pissed off at my fellow drivers, and in fact, am not quite as rage-ful as I used to be! I've become a much better person in the last five years, and though I can't completely contribute the change to my journalling (because, let's face it, I'm sure the Zoloft had more to do with that than writing about my feelings!), writing has helped me work through many issues, and showed me that my life is pretty damn good just as it is. I'm much calmer, happier and feel more at peace with myself and my life. I enjoy my life a lot more, and look forward to each new day.

Over the past five years, my journal has undergone many changes, the first of which was name change from "The Writing on the Wall" to "Self-Portrait", which happened the very first year. Since then, I've moved hosts several times, bought a domain name, contemplated quitting numerous times, lost nearly a year's worth of entries due to my host's server crash, changed the design more times than I can count, and basically shared every intimate aspect of my life, my struggles, my failures, and my accomplishments with the entire world. For a long time I tried to figure out exactly what I wanted my journal to be - a "laundry list" of my day, or something more indepth? I participated in a journalling workshop where journal entries were basically compared to essays, and we were encouraged to spend a great deal of time writing and rewriting our entries. As interesting and informative as it was, by the end of that workshop, I decided that my journal will just be that: my journal. You may call it a "laundry list" if you like, I don't care. Although I'm sharing this journal with the world, it is basically just for me, and all I really want is a record of my days.

So, now my journal, like my life, is pretty much settled. I'm celebrating Self-Portrait's five year "journalversery" with a pretty new layout, and by calling it "Version 5", although it's probably really version one hundred five! Whatever version my journal is actually in, it has been a wonderful companion to me, and a great voice for me. Online journalling has been an interesting, exciting, painful, amazing ride, and one that I wouldn't trade for anything!

Thanks for reading! Here's to five more years!