31 December 2013

The End of Everything

Stupid new year's eve again. That means all the days of the year are used up, all the days but what's left of today. It also means that this blog has turned three years old. Three years already, can you believe that? That's a child being born and raised to a point where it can walk. I've been thinking about this space a lot lately, thinking about what to do with it.

My new job requires a lot of writing, and writing always requires thinking about words. It's difficult and really tiring at times. I also considered posting less, but that's a compromise I'm not willing to do. I find it important to maintain a certain flow, a rhythm within the posts of a week, a month, a year. And it's no secret that I've had trouble keeping up with the past two months.

I came to consider it a project. Three years isn't bad, if you ask me. Three years exactly and, in case you're interested in the statistics, The Quiet Leaf had nearly twenty-five thousand visitors. People from many different places have dropped by, most of them from Germany, Korea and the US, and I'm thankful for each and every one of them. Really, it means a lot to me.

There are many fictional stories about people's lives, I read about them in books and see them in films. The heroes' stories are told on various accounts, based on indicators like women (e.g. Hornby's High Fidelity or Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers), or criminal motives (e.g. Se7en or Goodfellas), or extraordinary events (as seen in Stranger than Fiction).

And when I look back on my humble life so far, I'd like to back on many projects. To call high-school a project would be a lie, of course, but frankly, I don't care about those days too much. I was a weird kid. What happened after that has formed me most, I think. The way I think, the way I speak, how I present myself, the people I've met. All the things I've done.

This blog is a fair record of the past three years of my life. It tells stories about me and my friends, about trips I've been on, about things I like and things I don't. It's about people and places, about memories and thoughts. One might call it a half-personal journal. And it's over. It's done and I enjoy looking back on each day. Typing this doesn't come easy, but ... thank you for everything, dear reader. 

I wish you all the best.