Two Years Of Blogging

I started this blog two years ago today, on a complete and utter whim. I had always been somewhat interested in the idea of having a blog, and I did dabble with free BlogSpot sites in the past. I never was consistent about them, though. It cost money to start this blog. I still don’t totally understand how it works, but I pay for my domain name and a hosting site to act as the home for my blog. I never expected it to become reality. It was just another one of those ideas that I thought would be nice but had accepted would probably never really happen.

I’m not sure what got into me 2 years ago, but upon reflecting on different Facebook memories, it seems I get to be a bit more spontaneous this time of year. I must’ve seen a blog or heard something about one when I had the thought of starting one. Then, I must’ve run with it, because within a few hours, my blog was up and running. I haven’t changed it hardly at all since beginning it. I think it would be fun to give it a makeover, though. I could learn more about site design. I suppose we will see.

It’s a bit strange for me to reflect on my earliest posts. I have grown even since then. Two years does not seem like much in the grand scheme, but when you look back, you begin to see all of the ways in which you’ve changed. I guess the goal is for that to keep happening. If you’re not changing, you’re not improving or learning or growing. I constantly strive to be a bit better than I was yesterday. When you combine all of the yesterdays, two whole years of trying to be a little better makes a big difference.

I am quite proud of who I am. I have overcome huge obstacles in life. I keep moving forward, even when circumstances feel impossibly hard. I have built up a resilience. I have not always had the confidence that everything will work out for me. I have, at times, believed that it was inevitable for my life to be tragic and sad. I have come a long way.

The dawn of this blog meant overcoming my feelings of worthlessness. In my very first post, I talked about how I felt selfish starting a blog. It felt like no one would ever be interested in the things that I have to say. I did not believe that I was worth listening to (or reading the words of). I had to accept that those feelings were just that: feelings. The way we feel about ourselves is not always representative of reality. We are our own biggest critics. Turns out, life is a lot less complicated when you start working with yourself instead of against.

In the past two years, I have:

1. Completed 1/2 of my nursing school program
2. Reconnected with my mother
3. Lost the ex-boyfriend that played a huge role in me becoming who I am
4. Lost a friend to suicide
5. Got engaged
6. Changed jobs multiple times
7. Made many new friends
8. Got a cat
9. Started, restarted, restarted again writing a memoir
10. Lived through a global pandemic that changed pretty much everything
11. Fallen more in love with my life than ever.

Those are just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are other major life changes that happened that I am simply blanking on. The point is that a lot can happen in two years. The person I was when I started this blog is obviously still me, but I have changed and become a slightly different version of me. I wonder what would happen if I could conjure myself from two years ago and have a conversation with her. What would that be like?

When you compound all of the changes that have occurred throughout your entire life, both physical, mental, and emotionally, it’s hard to comprehend. When you look at baby photos of yourself, it’s hard to understand that that baby isn’t some abstract idea. It was you. Your soul, your consciousness, your essence of life is present in those eyes, in that smile. Whoever you were then is still a part of you now. Every single version of yourself that you have ever been, you still are. They’re just layered, one on top of the other.

For me, having this blog or journaling in general has been absolutely instrumental in healing and learning about who I am. I am able to look back on past versions of myself and see what I was thinking. I catalogue my experiences so that not only can others get a glimpse into my human experience, but I can re-experience them, too. It’s beautiful to me that as human beings, we have the capacity to be transported to other places, other times, other experiences by reading or hearing about them. Maybe time travel isn’t literally possible, but we can figuratively travel through time by sharing these stories with each other.

I think in the past, I have written about how important it is to talk about your life. No one can see life quite the way that you can. No two people will ever have the exact same experience. We could stand side by side one another in the same plane of existence at the same time, and still walk away with vastly different stories to tell. It can be overwhelming to think about how many things we will never see, never hear, never feel. How many books we will never get to read, songs we will never hear, lives we will never live. I guess I just am extremely interested in experiencing all that I can experience within the short time I have in this life. I also recognize my limitations. I cannot travel the entire world. I cannot work every job. I cannot try every food to exist. However, through hearing and reading of other real human beings’ experiences, I can get close to things that otherwise would not be accessible to me.

That’s the idea behind my blog. I’ve got stories to share, and this seems as good a place as any to share them. I’m always interested in the stories of others. If you’d like to share, my email is always open. Two years down, many more to go. Thanks for being here.