“If I was now living 25 years ago, how would I live?”
In 2019 I started my Time Travel project, where I wrote fictional diary entries from 25 years ago.
I write these diaries on what has been my main website since 2018.
https://laurenharteveld.com/
You can find them under headers such as “diary 1998”.
The diary entries are, not entirely unintentional, pretty difficult to find on my site.
But you can try the following pages:
1. https://laurenharteveld.com/1994-a-performance-art-project/
2. https://laurenharteveld.com/1995-1996-book-2-of-my-performance-project/
And the categories:
3. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1995-1996/
4. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1997/
5. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1998/
Starting at 2019 going on 1994;
The posts were inspired by real life, real time events, but I never “got” into that feeling of actually living 25 years ago.
My time travel project never reached the level and intensity I had intended. It stayed a literary construct, nothing more.
It staying at the surface had to do with the worldwide events of early 2020, when I was seven to eight months into my retro diary series, and toying with the idea of taking it up a notch and turn back time. But before I could decide, we all became dependent on 21st century technology to stay in touch.
Overnight, it became impossible to revive an analogue past, in particular because the social dynamics around real-life interaction affected my mental health.
I know I’m cutting corners here, but to this day I don’t understand why we, citizens, turned on each other and how the responsibility towards vulnerable people was made into a key argument.
Fast forward 2023, and those vulnerable people are still vulnerable, yet those same social dynamics have now entirely returned to normal.
There would not be a lasting protection, and this could be predicted.
You have to wonder who was the biggest villain: The one who openly defended their controversial choice back in the day, or the one who pretended to be with the good and responsible people, until they could get on with their normal life without having to care.
By now you have to explain yourself if you still wear a mask.
The only consistent factor seems to be that the numbers of a majority decide who is right.
It’s comparable with a situation where for example security at a concert would be very tight, and we all tell each other it’s such a good thing that all those weapons are not allowed on the premises, and people making an incredible big deal about it with families turning on each other, people losing friends and everything. And then one year those same people who enforced the tight security, don’t care anymore and no one talks about it.
I have no idea if these paragraphs are enough of a conclusion or attempt of trying to understand why I found those years so stressful, but for now that is all I can say about it.
I do know that my main blog contains several series trying to get my sexuality back as well as my retro-project back;
Both areas of my life were interchangeable to me.
The Lauren who was 25 years younger was living in a carefree analog world, with her lover Bear who was the same age as she was.
But no matter how many “Behind the scenes” (BTS) posts I wrote to write about the real-time universe and how to create space for Lauren 1995/1996/1997 to have a life of some sort;
No matter how many diaries I wrote about my personal isolation and frustration during those years, real life struggles, and regardless of how many quests I took to recover who I was sexually;
It didn’t work.
Everything stayed as dry and rooted in the now, as it ever was.
So now it is 2023 and the social dynamics have shifted. The situation is comparable to late 2019, and I can, and should, dive into the universe of the 20th century.
I am finally going to give Lauren 1998, the life she deserves.
~Lauren/LS Harteveld
An unexamined life is not worth living
since 2018 my official blog is: https://laurenharteveld.com/
This is also where I write my Lauren 1998 diaries.
Plus letters to my coach Sara.
ABOUT THE TIME TRAVEL JOURNAL
Time Travel Journal is a stand-alone project, written on my oldest blog, which does not have a “Subscribe” button, nor would I know how to install one.
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My diaries en erotica are available in my BOOK SHOP