I have a lot of drafts of blog posts. What’s interesting at this moment is how many of those drafts are currently not relevant. Drafts of things from January or February 2020, before the pandemic came to this part of the world in force. Notes and thoughts and paragraphs about pieces of life that don’t exist now.
A few months ago, I went through the drafts and deleted quite a few. Some had notes that no longer triggered thoughts. (“I wrote that?”) Some were written and needed to be deleted instead of edited. (“I’m so glad I didn’t hit publish on that!”) Some were specific to a point on the timeline of the pandemic and are no longer relevant.
Even with that, 41 drafts remain. One I wrote today, for next week.
And 40 others that don’t fit today.
As I sifted through them, looking for something to spark words, it turned out to be the sifting that sparked thoughts.
It’s funny how very different and how very much the same life is now as it was when those bits were saved.
There’s still school and work and the changing seasons. There are still friends and music and art. There’s still wonder and curiosity. (There’s still lots of bad things, too, but I’m not going to list those out.)
We’re interacting with all of that differently than we used to, through masks or through computer screens, but it’s still there. Some of it is better than it was. For example, I will be happy to have game night again, but doing it online let me play with friends I’d never be able to play with otherwise. Maybe I’ll still do it online sometimes.
I’ll keep the drafts, and when it’s time, I’ll see if each is good as-is, if it needs to be revised, or if it needs to be ditched. Just like all the pre-pandemic habits.