I’ve been reviewing my posts from 2011. I remember some of the highlights, but other posts trigger memories that had slipped past. This is good. This is the archive working as it should, giving me paths back into things I’ve learned and forgotten.

So I’ve been going back further in time. It turns out that Calibre makes it easy to convert HTML to other formats, including the MOBI format that Kindle uses. I had modified my WordPress archive templates to give me a bulk view that’s useful for copying posts into my archives. I added header tags for the different months, and copied the resulting HTML files (ex: 2011). Then I converted the files and loaded them onto my Kindle.

I’ve been going through my 2010 archive, and I’m surprised by which things resonate with me after this time. I flip past pages and pages about collaboration and presentations and all of these tips. The posts I linger over are the weekly reviews, where one-line mentions expand into memories. Sometimes I come across things I’ve written about life, and they flesh out the memories more. Not often enough. I’m going to write about life more.

Many posts are about looking ahead: things I want to do, sketches of success so I get a better idea of where I’m going. Other posts are about lessons learned. Work-wise, I’m pretty okay at remembering and applying what I’ve learned, or knowing where in my notes I can find things again – configuration snippets, techniques, and so on.

Life is fuzzier. I read my blog posts and wonder how I grew into or out of interests, how my days changed. This is probably what I should write more about: things I’m learning in life, and echoes of the present.

I write about things I’m learning at work because I think that might be useful to other people. I write for myself, too. What will I want to remember five years from now, ten, fifteen, more?

A cat, circling around, settling into my lap as my computer balances on the edge of my knees. This feeling of being in between spheres.