As the Dust Starts to Settle

By Holly Lisle

Mostly the move is done. There are a few bugs, chat remains down while we wait for a new key from Jonathan. The Research Index is going to have to be reinstalled by the guy who did it the first time. But now the community is there, and I am here.

It’s like walking one last time around in the place you lived in for years, after the movers come and take out all the furniture. Everything echoes. Rooms look bare. The whole space feels alien. You look at the empty walls, curtainless windows, scuffed wood floors, and you feel as hollow as the house.

Everything changes; that’s just life. Change or die. But what happens next?

I did something cool with the community, and for a while simply the fact that it was my thing made me kind of cool by association. But now it is on its own. It’ll run, be strong, be as vibrant and loud and lively as it has been since the beginning. I’m standing here in the empty house though, thinking, “I’m not going to be anybody’s start page anymore.” Yeah, that’s a little bit self-pitying. But really, what author was ever anybody’s start page? Forward Motion is a one of a kind thing, and I love it wildly. Walking away from everything but occasional visits rivals some of the other really hard choices I’ve had to make. And I know it was the right thing to do. I know it.

But, damn, the full realization is sinking in, and it’s hard. And why do the walls have to look so bare?

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