Every time I dip my toe back into the FebruaryStars.org waters, I’m hit with waves of memories and questions about the future.

I’d really like to finish moving my 2000, 2001, and 2002 archives into WordPress (from .html) but the process is like taking a dull knife to old scars - sometimes you hit a nerve that didn’t quite heal correctly. My husband won’t even read my archives. (That hurts.) But rereading them for me is like revisiting the moment, remembering the sights, smells and feelings of that day. Why I was given such a gift of memory is beyond me - perhaps not so much a gift as a curse. The worst moments are the clearest.

I managed to get the first entries into WordPress - August 2000. Back when Scott David Herman was all that and a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, and februarystars.org was in its infancy. (Regardless of historical twists and turns, Scott’s a fabulous writer, and I still read his site once in a while - when I’m in need of some creative inspiration.) The ironic thing about reposting the entries is all the cringing I do as I scan the entry. Who was that person?

Thankfully most of the Max entries are already moved. I certainly don’t want to dwell in that morass longer than necessary.

Most of the irony for me is what isn’t in the entries. How suffocated I felt by Melissa, how demanding Audrey was, how frustrating my family was to me for several years. I see the entries slack after I married Stephen - when I was actively struggling with certain members of his family, who used my entries to hack at my heart. It makes me wish februarystars had been my little secret - a secret that hadn’t been shared with friends, family and more than a few haters.

I suppose there’s a maturity factor in the 8+ years since this online monstrosity started. No one handed me a rule book when I became fascinated by the world of online journals. Get drunk and post an entry, and you’ll live with the aftermath for a long time. Post something about your family, and you discover just how many of your family members read it. Write only about yourself and your own stories - others’ stories should be off-limits unless they give you permission to share them. As people come and go in your life, it becomes more and less appropriate to share them with the world. How do you know what to do?

Soon the number of entries slows to single digits per year, because very few topics are safe. I went to the Police concert, I saw a shooting star, I walked the dog. Noteworthy events generally involve others, and you start to err on the side of caution. No topic is safe.

I guess that’s where The Deken Zoo comes in. It’s easy to talk about the kids. Very rarely does a day go by that one of them isn’t bowling me over with something they say or do. But when you’re moving at 110mph, those little details get lost in the shuffle. I don’t want to lose them. Justin’s childhood is a blur. I’d like to save what I can.

Maybe everyone’s forgotten about this site now that it’s been quiet for so long. Maybe I could start writing again and no one will notice. I could share my hopes and dreams and frustrations about my marriage, my life, my children, my career, my friends. Or maybe I’ll just pick up a pen and start journalling on paper again - the way I did in 1999.

You ask for walls -
I’ll build them higher.
We’ll lie in shadows of them all.
I’d stand but they’re much too tall -
and I fall.

February stars
Floating in the dark.
Temporary scars -
February stars.

Old school,
mich