This Blog is 9 Years Old
9 years ago, I started this blog. I feel like I’m supposed to say something profound to mark the occasion. Explain how I’ve kept up almost daily writing for 9 straight years without a break. But I don’t really know how I’ve done it except show up.
I show up, every day, at this space. 95% of the time, I write something. And about 80% of the time, I also post something. I write a lot more than I post. I don’t know why. Sometimes I just need to write something and other times I need other people to read what I’ve written in order to release it. And then there are other times when I have nothing to write but I really need someone to read. It’s very complicated, this word thing.
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Nathan Bransford wrote recently about missing the blogosphere. One part of me completely understood what he meant. 2007 – 2009 was a different time in the blogging world. This blogoversary post is a case in point. On my second blogoversary, even though my readership was less than a third of what it is now, I received 117 comments. Lots of people were celebrating with me; we celebrated each other’s spaces. This year, I’m guessing I’ll get around 14 comments. Maybe? The way we talk to each other online has changed.
And then another part of me doesn’t miss the blogosphere because it’s all still here. It’s different, yes, but I always have blog posts to read. There are always people out there, expressing themselves. You do need to be out there yourself to find them, but as long as you are still clicking through people’s comment section and finding new bloggers, your feed reader will always be full.
It’s sort of like picking strawberries. In the middle of the season, the strawberries are easy to pick and you can go home with so many strawberries that you don’t know what to do with all of them. Some inadvertently end up rotting before you can turn them into jam. But right now, we’re closer to the end of the season. The strawberries are a little harder to find, but when you do, they are sweet and bright red. Maybe you cherish and use them a little better because they took a little more work to find.
Luckily, things have a way of coming back around, so I’m hopeful there will be another beginning, middle, and end of blogging season again and again and again if we continue to replant and tend the rows.
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Or maybe you just read that and thought, “Melissa is such a fool! She thinks this blogging thing has a future.”
I do.
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All I know is that I need this space. That this space completes some missing puzzle piece in my heart, and I need to keep writing it regardless of whether any other blog exists in the future. It feels like home as much as my home feels like home. It feels like a part of who I am, how I define myself.
It’s something I need; in the same way that I need hugs and books and flashlights. None of those things are akin to water or food or air, but they are things I need to feel comfortable. I need my body to be touched and my mind to be challenged and my fears to assuaged by hugs and books and flashlights. And somewhere in there, I need a space where I can write that is entirely within my control.
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So that’s it. Not very profound. Maybe not as eloquent as I’ve been on other blogoversaries. But it’s what I felt like saying, and I can do that because this blog is a me-shaped space.
Thank you for being here with me in this me-shaped space.
46 comments
I love this space, so I’m glad you do too and that you keep coming back to it. And I’m very envious of your strawberries! our season is still weeks away and I haven’t enjoyed a single fresh strawberry yet!
I have only been blogging for 5 years and I have noticed the same thing as well. Our first IVF cycle in 2011 I received SO much support from my blog, and found many people cycling at the same time as me. It was what kept me sane! During my second IVF in 2013 and third in 2015 I have felt much less support. It’s ok, I don’t need it as desperately as I did that first time. But I feel bad for those who are just joining us here.
I still comment quite a bit, but I understand why others don’t. Life changes things.
Oh and obviously Happy Blogoversary!
I am normally a lurker but I’d like to comment today;) Your blog was such a lifeline during my infertility journey and I still enjoy checking in and hearing your perspective. Thank you for sharing!
Happy blogoversary!
I’ve been blogging since 2008ish but at several different blogs, and in a random way, so I never had that many people reading, which I’ve never minded. I believe in blogging, too. But I also think it’s harder than people think it is. To blog with consistency requires commitment. I also think there will be an upswing again. It’s fun and there are more people than just you and I who find it fun (as well as other, deeper things) and so I think it will swing back to super popular again.
Happy Blogoversary! I do think the blogging world has changed…and I miss a lot of what it used to be, and not just because I closed my blog. But life changes and you kind of have to roll with it.
Congratulations on 9 years! That’s a lot of work!
First, Congratulations and Happy Blogoversary Mel! 9 years is something to be very proud of and admired.
I love reading blogs, and you are right, it is so much harder to find blogs now. I think other forms of social media took over. People post and vent things on Facebook that probably would be better suited for a blog, but that instant gratification is what I think wins out. I hate Facebook, btw, and am no longer on there.
I agree with Illistr8ed above that blogging is harder than people think it is. I used to blog, and on the days I had nothing really to say, I felt I had to say something. I miss blogging a lot, and have tried to come back to it. But many years ago, I had my blog invaded by people in real life. I was going through some stuff, and it all got used against me in very hurtful ways. I know my blog wasn’t private, but the way this happened, it felt like a major invasion of my privacy and I no longer felt safe blogging. I lost my safe space, and I have never really been able to find that again, even though it has been years and that part of my life is resolved.
Mel, I admire you and the space you have created and the community you have built. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
This blog — your blog — changed my life. And probably countless other’s.
Yes, this: ” this space completes some missing puzzle piece in my heart” about my own blog.
Once in awhile I have reason to revisit an old post of mine. It’s like a time capsule to see who left comments and what comments were left. It was much more like a club then. A pond. Now it’s an ocean.
Not bad, just different.
Oh, an happy blogoversary! Presenting you a virtual cake and candle.
P.P.S. Sorry to mess you your comment prediction.
Congratulations Mel…. I am always so surprised when you mention the age of your blog because it was about nine years ago when we were first introduced to this infertility thing. But, when I first started googling it, and found you straight away, this blog felt already so established I thought it must have been around forever. It was full of information of course, but as an outsider popping in, it also felt so full of life. I had never read comments before, and this blog was my introduction to even the notion that others were struggling in the same way. I’ve popped in and out of other blogs, but I always come back here. Thanks so much Mel. You’ve shaped this issue for me in a way that made me able to somehow handle it like no other support has.
Happy Blogiversary, Mel! Your blog is one of my favourites, and I’m glad you keep this space and share it with the world. 🙂
Happy Blogiversary Mel ! Nine years is an amazing accomplishment.
What ?! Your blog is only three years older than mine? Hmm… Not sure what that says about us.
I remember perfectly how awed by Stirrup Queens. And I still am. The level of commitment you dedicate to this blog is astounding. And what I find quite wonderful is that you put thought into your writing. Almost all your posts make me think, longer after I am done reading them. Sometimes I tell my husband about them, and we talk about them. I am not sure when I stopped reminding him who you were, but it was a long time ago. And it even happened that he asked me this year “How’s Mel?”, since, what with one and another, we got swamped in the daily grinding matters, and we stopped talking about something that was not.urgent.or.catastrophic. We badly needed to breathe. So one time he started asking me about my friends. And he also asked about you. And this is how I come to realise that you are a friend. And I do miss blogging.
I’ve had a dream recently, where a pink-haired young woman was telling me that I was wrong to hold to blogging, since it was the “floppy disk of the internet”. Apparently the future was instant messaging, which I was not at all into (clearly, I’m confusing things. IM is also quite obsolete, whatsapp is now the thing, isn’t it?) (Don’t answer that… I am not ready to find out the truth.).
Anywho. I don’t mind hanging on this floppy disk of the internet, as long as you’re here. ☺️
Happy anniversary to you and your blog!
happy blog-o-versary, from a chronic lurker.
Happy Blogoversary! 2007 is when I first found your blog, I think. This blog has always felt like a wonderful, comforting, cozy place. Thanks for all you do to keep that feeling alive!
Well see now you have 18 comments! Happy blogoversary!
The blogosphere has certainly changed in the 7 years that I have been blogging (WOW!). More people are communicating via FB or Twitter which makes it hard for this semi-anon blogger….but I keep chugging along. It’s nice to have your own space on the internet to post whatever you feel like posting. I’m glad that you have your own space to do that as well.
Happy, happy blogoversary, Mel! 🙂 Nine years is amazing! I think I found you sometime in early 2007, because I started my blog in October that year, after outing myself as a non-blogging lurker at a Lushary session & exchanging a few emails with you. 🙂 A lot of things have definitely changed in the blogosphere since then, some for the better and some for worse, but I am so very glad you are still here. <3
I love that you are still here and blogging. Happy blogaversary. xoxo
Happy blogoversary, Mel! I started blogging almost nine years ago – you (and Loribeth) are a few months ahead of me. Though I was blogging in a different part of the blogosphere, and didn’t find you until four years later.
I’m glad you’re still blogging. When you wrote this “this space completes some missing puzzle piece in my heart” I realised that that’s how I feel about blogging too. As long as there are like-minded people, people who like to think and discuss and write in more than 140 characters, then I can’t see blogging (or some variant of it) disappearing. Not in the short term at least.
Happy blogiversary! I so wish I had been blogging when you got so many comments – I struggle so much with developing those online relationships and yet, I need my blog and I just can’t stop writing! I’m glad you’re still here, I enjoy you blog, and I hope you’ll be here for a long time to come!
Congratulations on 9 years! This blog has been so helpful and I will continue to read.
happy 9th! you are a veteran. I love the community building you inspire. I have learned a lot from Stirrup Queens and apart from that it is a good feeling just to know it is here and that you are reading and writing. I started blogging (a completely different blog) in 2005 but it is a far more meaningful experience to be part of a network like the one you have fostered through Stirrup Queens. I am hooked! torthúil is only 2.5 years old so I cannot compare to the “good ole days” but I do know I am grateful for the connections I have made. As I have said before I think blogs fill a need that other social media doesn’t and I think it is a need that has been around for a long time and will continue to be, at least among people of certain needs and temperament. And apart from that, as you put it so beautifully: “All I know is that I need this space. That this space completes some missing puzzle piece in my heart, and I need to keep writing it regardless of whether any other blog exists in the future. It feels like home as much as my home feels like home. It feels like a part of who I am, how I define myself.” Yes.
Hey
Congratulations!!!
Keep writing and keep sharing…..
I have been reading your blog for over 5 years and despite the changing landscape of blogging I appreciate that you continue to show up. Not only that but you actually dialogue with your readers. I don’t have a blog (I do the old fashioned paper and pen journal) but I have about 10 blogs that I have been reading for years. It’s nice to relate to people. To identify with them and feel connected. Thank you for continuing to show up.
Happy blogoversary!
I’ve followed blogs since 2005, and I think blogging has a future that is fluid and fruitful, much like the last decade has been. People are blogging now for different reasons, and in vastly different ways than they used to – not better or worse, perhaps, but just differently.
Here’s to ninety-nine or so more blogoversary posts!
Sounds pretty profound to me! And you at that, up to 25 comments!! You are an important part of the blogosphere & I am grateful you do post as often as you do. Happy Blogoversary!
A bit late to the party, but happy blogoversary! I’m amazed and impressed by your ability to have your space but also foster such community with it. Your posts, I might add, are something I always look forward to reading on the (many) days you do put one up.
This blog was one of the first ones I found when I was diagnosed. I lived in a more rural area where getting to a live support group was going to be very difficult so this blog (and others I found – often through this one) became a lifeline.
Blogging, I think, has a future. Perhaps I say that because I’m more of a long-form kind of girl and most of social media has been heading towards much more abbreviated forms of expression, but I still see people writing and responding even if it is a bit different.
I haven’t counted them, but I’m betting you get more than 14 comments 🙂 Happy Blogoversary. I hope you have many, many more because the strawberry patch wouldn’t even be worth visiting anymore if your blog goes away.
Happy Blogoversary!
I’ve been on a long blog-break and trying to come back :-).
You are such a role model. I love the way you always show up. Thanks for being you.
PS. I also miss how it used to be in the blogging world. It felt so supportive.
Congratulations! Love, love your blog.
Whooop! Happy Blogoversary. I, like many other people here, am grateful that you keep showing up, even when it seems like the room might be empty. I like the idea that commenting will come back in style. I think we need to talk to each other more than ever, and not just in 140 character sound bytes.
I love that I can always count on finding a posts from you when I check my feed. And I love reading your perspective on so many different parts of life – it’s challenged my thinking at times, made me laugh at others, and occasionally allowed me that moment of realizing “I’m not the only one!”
Happy blogoversary!
You win the prize! The blogoversary prize! The more comments than 14 but less than 117 prize! The community builder and sustainer prize! The must famous eschewer of mayonnaise in the blogosphere prize! Happy Anniversary!
This blog has been and continues to be a salvation. Congratulations on 9 years and echoing the well-wishes of all above. May there be many more.
9 years, congratulations!
I am an anonymous blogger, and have blogged for 6 years. I have never had massive readership, and for me, it’s kinda like a ‘Dear Diary’. If someone stumbles across my ramblings and benefits from it and comments – great, if not, c’est la vie, I am still recording my story for me! I do have a few stalwart commentators, which is great.
Happy 9th Blogoversary!
I started my main blog in 2007 and yes, can totally relate that those years you mentioned as the Golden Age of Blogging. I only receive about 2 comments these days he he…
I shall have a piece of that virtual cake, please! And I raise a virtual glass of champagne in your honour! I actually used to think you got paid doing this blog because of all your hard work – all the backing up, the links, the dohickies, the reading, the commenting – girl, that’s work! But I soon realized that it was a labour of love and friendship and community. Service. Compassion. Courage. Wisdom. This is the work of the Bodhisattva! It has really meant a great deal to me over the years. To be able to come to your house, for solace, for connection, there was always a seat waiting for me, even when I went away. Not many people in my world understand that, but I don’t care. I get it. Thank you.
Happy Anniversary, Mel! I haven’t been reading for nine years, but I think I’ve been reading for six (and when I started, I went back to read past entries from the beginning). I love your writing, and I love you — the you on my screen and the you that I’m lucky enough to know. Thank you for sharing both with me.
Happy blogiversary! I’m glad you were here years ago and are still here now! I look forward to reading what you write.
Things have changed I definitely see/read less comments on my blog compared to a few years ago. Good thing I write for myself (mostly).
I’m late to the party, but congratulations! 9 years of constant writing is a huge deal. And I certainly hope that this blogging thing has a future. It’s been a wonderful place to meet new people, to express and share your own thoughts and then get pings back from other people who “get you.” When I started my blog, it was pretty much just for me, a place to get my complicated feelings about infertility and my journey out there somewhere. But after spending time here with you (first lurking, then participating), I realized how important it is to truly make it about community, not a little island out there by itself. I have gotten so much more out of my own blog and everyone else’s, and gained so much perspective, and I have you, you, YOU to thank for it. This blog is a beautiful engine of community, perspectives, and observations, and I celebrate the 9 years and hope for many, many more to come! Congrats on a milestone!
Happy (belated) blogoversary! I always look forward to reading your posts. My reader is smaller now. I guess I find it hard to start reading new stories and many of my old friends post less frequently or not at all. But I know I can count on you. Thank you.
Congrats! Happy (Belated) Blogaversary! Glad you enjoy your space and continue to share it with others. Nine years is dedication!