As I mentioned previously, on Sunday night I accidentally deleted my twitter account. My personal account – the one I’ve used for years – the one with almost 17,000 tweets under its belt.

When it first happened, I was in complete shock. I didn’t know whether to cry or completely flip out. I was in shock and the only thing I wanted to do was the one thing I couldn’t do  – tweet about what had just happened.  I updated my Facebook page, and started using another account that I’d created previously (the one I was actually *trying* to delete) and started over from scratch. I had no followers and one tweet, and so it began. I went to bed on Sunday night feeling sad, lonely, and angry at myself for not paying closer attention to what I was doing.

On Monday morning I started thinking about how I felt and I realized that the only other time in my life that I felt this way was years ago in Second Life when I’d worked and worked to create a coffee shop where people could meet and be social and I ended up accidentally deleting the entire place with one wrong click of the mouse. I was devastated then and couldn’t comprehend what had happened. It felt just like that.

Then I started to remember something else… it was that moment, that accidental deletion, that made me build a better coffee shop. It made me work harder and I learned more. I made a better space, became more adept and skilled at building, and started working with other people to make new vibrant spaces.  This could be just like that.

Even though my new twitter account has a name that sounds slightly like a potential spammer, friends found me, and new people started to follow. Support requests had been submitted to twitter in the hopes of restoring my account, but with every minute that passed, I cared less and less about having it restored. I was energized, free, and in a position to start over and make this identity whatever I wanted it to be. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was/is to feel that way.

I think that sometimes we get so caught up in our ‘persona’ and what people expect from us that we stop being ourselves or stop remembering who we want to be. I think when you’re always talking with the same group of people in the same space about the same topics, things start to get beaten to death and nothing new ever happens. Starting over with a new identity – perhaps one that’s even more true to yourself than the original identity – is exhilarating. No expectations, no promises, no responsibilities. Free to be whatever you want to be – and that includes… yourself.

Tonight I accidentally deleted my twitter account. You are probably wondering how a person “accidentally” does that when you have to confirm it and are presented with a “hey are you aware if you do this…” type of message. Well, I’ll tell you how.

I had another twitter account that I ended up never using and it was linked through a badge on a blog. I was editing the blog and wanted to delete the badge and that account. I clicked through and deleted the account, but since I was already logged in as my @micala account, I ended up deleting @micala and not the one I truly meant to delete.

I must say that when I realized it, I couldn’t breathe. I could not believe that I had done that. I felt lost. I wanted to tweet about it – but couldn’t!

In thinking about how I feel right now, I don’t feel bad losing the tweets because I honestly never cared about that. I view twitter as sort of an ongoing chatroom – but my name and the credibility that I felt I’d built up after using twitter for several years, is now gone and that bothers me.

I’m crossing my fingers that someone at twitter can help me, but if not, then I’m starting anew. Not by choice, but by necessity. I’m trying to look at the positives – sometimes a fresh start is a wonderful thing…… right?