I wanted a new lighter, simpler look for my website so I installed the updated version of the theme that I use.

While doing so, I noticed all the past versions of that theme, and other themes that I hadn’t used for years, just waiting for me to reactivate them and use them again.

Why would I? Why did I keep them?

It’s like clothes in my closet. Although I am diligent, for the most part, at removing clothes I don’t wear, I kept a sweatshirt in my closet for years, that I had only worn once or twice. It was because I had a memory of why I bought it. Interesting that the memory was how good someone else had looked in it – decades before.

Yes, decades.

I let that sweatshirt go this year, and last week I deleted all the past, and unused, versions of website themes.

All of which brought me to the awareness of how many past versions of myself I keep around in my head, thinking perhaps I might return to that version someday.

Some of them are versions I liked, some I didn’t. Perhaps it is wishful thinking that I can return to a younger version of myself – if I store that version long enough.

Why would I? Some of the versions are ones where I made mistakes. Do I keep that version around to remind me that I have done stupid things?

Why resurrect past mistakes? Why keep versions of youth that cannot be reactivated, even if they could, should they?

Continue Reading