I was clearing out an old laptop and found a folder of browser bookmarks from about ten years ago. I clicked through them one by one. Most were dead. Not redirected, not changed - just gone. Server not found, domain for sale, page removed. These were places I went often enough to save. A forum where I used to talk about music. A website a friend had made. A few blogs that felt important at the time, written by people who had things to say. All of it just stopped existing at some point without telling me.

I tried to remember what it felt like to be in those places. I could get the shape of the feeling - something like belonging, like finding a room of people who thought the same way - but the detail is gone too. Parts of my past have just been deleted by servers going cold, and I didn't get to say goodbye to any of them. They were there and then they weren't and I was busy with other things. What online places shaped you that no longer exist? Is the version of you who lived in them still around somewhere?