I have made a decision to slowly walk away from the nickname/persona/avatar/moniker of “jhimm”. This self-chosen pseudonym has been the central defining point of my identity both in real life and online for 15 years; essentially my entire adult life. Under this name I have said and done a great many things of which I am not proud and which I cannot at this point defend. It is time to put this part of my life journey firmly in the past and begin emerging out from under this constructed identity into something more genuine and more humble.

The primary complication in this process is website usernames, IM names, email addresses and the like. When you use the same nickname from a time that pre-dates the world wide web well into the 21st Century, it becomes pretty deeply entrenched as your virtual identity. My account name for more or less every major nonprofessional internet site and service is “jhimm” (with the exception of AIM because some guy named John Himmleberger beat me to it).

So, there is not much point in trying to completely restructure my virtual identity. And, honestly, I cannot hope to truly abandon my own past. This would be disingenuous as well as fool hardy.

I owe nearly everyone I have ever met as “jhimm” an apology of some kind. I allowed a few primary traumas in my life to crystallize into frustration, hatred, defensiveness and aggression. I cannot erase this past, but I can atone for it, own up to it, and freely and humbly admit my error within it.

If we are, or were, friends in real life, and we don’t speak often, or ever, it is almost certainly because I have abandoned our friendship on the basis of some perceived slight (or an explicitly stated one in some cases). I have learned recently this is all in my head and that I have been horribly unforgiving with people I should care about deeply. And so to you, I am the most sorry.

I spent 15 years craving justice. Now I want to crave peace, hope and love.

So hi. My name is Jim Marks. I’m new here. I hope we can be friends.