There are many theories of reality.

Some people say that reality doesn't exist unless someone's there to observe it. Others claim that there is a fundamental reality regardless of its observers. The age old question of "If a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to see it, does it make a sound?"

About three years ago, I started writing thanks to a web site that offered a free writing course. As time passed I got more and more involved in this site and became a part of it. So much so that I wrote for their monthly e-zine and wrote one of their classes a year and a half down the road. I even went down to Virginia to meet some of my fellow classmates and the brains behind the site. The site was part of my daily routine, I made friends who changed my life.

A year ago, I decided to take a break and stop writing there altogether. I wanted to take a local class on writing and get some face-to-face feedback. I told everyone I was taking a break and literally cut myself off. A few months later, at the end of my NYU course, I injured my back and stopped writing completely. Each time I thought of my novel, I'd get depressed and try to put it out of my mind.

This week, I finally decided that unless I got back to the site, I am never going to finish my novel. And the characters refuse to leave me alone. Plots attack me out of nowhere and I keep hearing dialogue. So I logged back onto the site and started surfing around.

The thing that surprised me the most was how little things had changed. I don't mean the site hadn't improved; they offered more and better classes now and they had many more members. But most of the old-timers were still around, still writing their novels, albeit they're much further along. I just felt like I'd never been away.

It was so eerie.

I just thought it odd that when I was incredibly involved in this community and then I removed myself, for some reason it was as if the community disintegrated. But of course it hadn't. When you quit your job and come back to visit a few months down the road, you can often see that things are pretty much the same way they were before you left. Similarly, just because you stop reading a website, the poster doesn't stop writing it. It only feels to you as if the world stopped cause you're not observing anymore.

It made me realize how insignificant one person is in the grand scheme of things and how, thankfully, the world goes on.

With or without you.

Previously? Intimate Stranger.