A Rock Journalist | year 1990 behind the scenes

Before I knew what new 18 year old Lauren Harteveld wanted to be when she grew up; I knew the weight of the past 20 years had to be lifted off my shoulders.

Having been a writer since 2006, and online since 2010, with over 400 blogposts since December 2018 alone (which is this website, an act of flat out abandonment of my older website), it had gotten too much too carry.
And it had been for a very long time.

My body of work had gotten so large it was probably too much to bear for any writer, but in particular for someone who wanted to start fresh.
As an 18 year old, in the year 1990, with a future of endless possibilities.

The countless blogposts, offline diaries and Word-files? Screamed obligation, stuck-ness and threatened to drown me alive.

So last weekend I made the decision to retire Lauren Harteveld, as we know her, or knew her.

Don’t worry!
The current three series, which have been going out for months in this format, will go on unchanged!

With every week a new episode of either Behind the Scenes, of Lauren 1990, or Harteveld 2025*, a post capped at 2200 characters.

And once a month I write a letter to Sara here, my coach.

Of which the latest was three days worth of writing and creating art work and then re-creating it.
Dear Sara will always be as long as it needs to be, because they are like foundational posts on which the whole thing is built.
After writing her, I can see where I need to change things up.

As was the case this time.
The separation the letter spoke about, into three different personalities (Rock Star, Mad Chaotic Person (MCP), and Lauren, the soft, feminine side of me who isn’t online) proved that, ultimately, there were no years attached to them.
They are all whole personas, all living on both timelines, 1990 and 2025.
But initially I did not get that, and having three personalities on two timelines, at first, drew me absolutely nuts.

I thought all work on these three personality types had been in vain. I should have used the two timelines as starting points.
Because with three personalities, living on two timelines I now I had six; Obviously undoable.

I thought I had broken it, and that the only way to free myself was to burn the 20 years of writing, so that I could actually BE in 1990, as an 18 year old version of myself.
I was like an animal wanting to chew off its own leg….

But then, fortunately, I found a way out. And before I burned it all down in an attempt to free myself.

So what happened to the three personalities and the two timelines?

Well, I could extract one personality (the Rock Star/ Artist), and one professional timeline (2025).
The other timeline 1990 still exists, as do the other personalities of offline Lauren and the Mad Chaotic Person (MCP) who is in charge of all online posting, and the backup option if the situation requires warmth, fun and casualness;
But the things essential for my success could essentially all be boiled down to one career, and one persona;
The Rock Star/ Artist.

She will be working in 2025.

On the 2025 timeline Rock Star-me, writer me (mostly under my real name), will almost mechanically handle all my current day projects and work on all areas.
Including publishing all work Lauren Harteveld in the upcoming years.

I’ve always had it as my main goal to become the Anais Nin (a famous diary writer) of the 21st century, yet I’ve decided to end my diary writing years.
Almost 20 years is enough.
And closing my years as a diarist, and switching to curating this work and securing the legacy of it, feels like the best choice I made in years.

So like I said, the current three series will stay on, but they’re not written from living the experience itself.
Like this piece, what you’re reading now, it’s from a bird’s eye perspective.

That’s not the same as writing from a diary standpoint.

Professionally the personality of the Rock Star will live fully in 2025.

However, the 1990 version of me, will embody her. Live her.

And she will live with the idea of becoming a journalist.

In 1990, I’ll be studying rock, and pretend that I’m a teen in 1990, who has decided she’s gonna go for it.
She wants to write about rock and become a professional journalist!

She and current-day me are the same person. Just that real me has more on her plate, including publishing the Lauren diaries 2010-2025 and secure her legacy as the diarist of this century.
Maybe that will happen within my lifetime, maybe not.
I keep seeing recognition coming in a hundred years from now when my work be uncovered, vault style.

Meanwhile (like I said) I will keep writing posts like this, to let people know what’s going on now.
And to share how things are going on my 1990 timeline.

Should the 1990 adventures be worth writing about, I always have my offline dairies to document that.
But I feel diary writing, even as a way to shape my time travel project (like I did 1994-2000, a publication which also desperately needs to be published and I keep dropping the ball) is no longer my thing.
I am really done writing diaries, and I want to BE the rock journalist, and under my real name.

Lauren Harteveld the diary writer may one day publish a new book/diary, but I don’t expect it. And not before I have her whole legacy wrapped up.

My 8 year goals are:
📵 to live a 20th Century life
🎸 to be a 20th century-inspired Rock journalist.
But on the current timeline.
So this means I make money creating content and speaking about rock music and 20th century things
📚 publish Lauren Harteveld work 2010-2025
📢 to make the Lauren Harteveld legacy visible

Coming back to the three-part identities I distinguished in the long letter I wrote to Sara, and why they (thank God) had not actually multiplied after all (into 6 different ones, spread over two timelines) the answer is this:

The Rock Star/Artist is who I am professionally, under both names, and in all different fields.
Lauren, the soft, beige clothed femme, is private me. Although I acknowledge there are few social situations and few people with whom I will be choosing to “be her” (meaning, my real me)
And the Mad Chaotic Person (MCP), the fun, outgoing, let-it-rip persona, who can step in for both (Rock Star or Lauren) if social interaction is required.

There is no punchline to this story, yet I cannot express how relieved I am. Relieved the lengthy post that took me days was not in vain;
Relieved to have a separation between the professional and the private;
And to have someone (the MCP) who can navigate between the two.

I’m relieved to be wrapping up 15 to 20 years of writing;
And to have a whole new career, ahead of me.

Starting fresh.

..
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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