ten years of blogging
My first ever blog post was on Blurty on October 9, 2003. I started blogging because of my new friend Young Anthony (who was even younger in 2003 than he is now, but always younger than I am!) and I really never thought it would be something I would still be doing ten years later.In April 2004, I moved my blog from Blurty to Blogspot and sadly that was in a year when Blogger was going through a lot of technical issues and I lost my blog posts from those years. In March 2005 I moved here - to my own self-hosted blog and have been here happily ever after.I learnt a lot from studying the top websites on the internet (click here for some of the top websites), and from there, it was all a dream came true as I copied them and slowly nurtured my own blog style.You learn a lot when you blog for as many years as I have. You can meet a ton of people. I often feel nostalgic for the days of the "Next Blog" arrow at the top of all Blogger blogs. That arrow lead me to meet bloggers who have become dear friends over the years. Some I have met in person, some I still need to meet and only a few still blog regularly. Heck, when I first got a Facebook account, many of my blogging friends laughed and said they'd never get one. Now? I am friends with pretty much all of my old blog friends on FB and that's how I know what's going on with them.I have watched people fall in love, get married, get divorced, have children, lose children, start jobs, lose jobs... I have watched children of my blogging friends grow up from adorable, diapered & dimpled beings into young adults - most even taller than I am now! I have read of and cheered accomplishments for friends I held dear even though it was only their words I saw on a daily basis and I have cried genuine tears of grief and sorrow over hardships and those little things that life throws in there to make you feel like everything is unfair.I love my blogging friends. I love their families and I feel like I often know more about them than people I do see on a daily basis. I care deeply for the friends I have made and am so thankful that the last ten years of my life have been enriched through reading their blogs and getting to know them even more through email, facebook and online.In the 10 years I have been blogging I have learned that no matter what you blog about, there will always be some sort of drama. There will always be someone who thinks they know better than you, or someone who might be jealous of your so-called success as a blogger or whatever you are. If you write about it online, everyone will have an opinion. Not all opinions will be positive. There are always phases of what the new IN thing is to write about or discuss. There will always be people who only care about page views and comments and the number of LIKES they get. But there are also really wonderful caring and sweet people out there who have interesting and funny things to say. People who write so well you get goosebumps all over your body just by reading their words. There are people who are hilarious and tell stories in the best way. There are people who will share their deepest, darkest fears, dreams and places with you because you never know who will be reading and what someone might be able to take away from your experiences.I have blogged about everything and nothing for ten years. Before that I used to update a hand-coded, HTML webpage (Hello? Geocities? Anyone?) just to keep friends and family updated in my life. I started blogging about books on a spin-off blog a few years into this blogging gig and met a whole new group of wonderful people whom I now also hold dear to my heart.Blogging has brought me so much happiness and much more richness to my life. I have traveled vicariously through friends, I have loved, lost, hoped and dreamed with blog friends. I have been blessed to have some share in my wedding day and help me create memories I will cherish forever. I have traveled and met some and will eventually travel and meet others. (I promise!!)This little blog has been online since March 2005, but I have owned beyondelsewhere.ca since November 2003, so I'm 10 years into this webhosting thing, too.It's been a fun ten years and thank you to all of those who might have been around the entire time, thank you to the new readers and a huge thank you and I adore you to the friends I have made along the way. I hope we have at least another 10 years of friendship together. xoxo Cheers!