Tenth blogiversary
I started my Livejournal ten years ago today, when I was crushingly depressed, in the middle of my senior thesis, and so gray that Buffy was one of the only things that kept me going. I wrote a bit about how reading valeriez's LJ got me to start using the word "depression" for what I was feeling, and I wanted an LJ of my own both to talk about my own depression but also to talk about Buffy. I didn't have many expectations, just the hope that a few people would drop by with kind words or Jossverse squee. Vague hopes, really, and even at my most optimistic, I barely touched on just how influential that choice to buy a one-month subscription-I didn't know anyone to get an invite code from-could possibly be.
I don't know what I would have done, those first few years out of undergrad, if I hadn't had my blog, if I hadn't had people talking honestly and openly about therapy and meds, both things that absolutely terrified me. I don't know what I would have done without book recs and squee and people cheering me on when I got my first Real Job, particularly when I knew it was something my parents were not too happy with. I don't know what I would have done without you guys when my first boyfriend broke up with me, the sympathetic comments and treats in the mail and mix tapes (CDs) and phone calls all tangible proof that someone (many someones) out there cared.
This is how I first heard about Wiscon and how I decided to finally go in 2006, how I started to finally take what I had learned of feminism from you all and apply it to my experiences of being Chinese, to so many of the things that had bugged me in college that I couldn't quite put a finger on. This is how I learned to be angry and how I learned to speak up, how I learned that the best friends would listen and disagree and argue and it wouldn't be the end of the of the world, that Geek Social Fallacies were fallacies and not everyone I liked had to like each other. This is where I learned that what I had to say was important too.
I want to focus on this not because of how it changed my politics (because I've written a lot about that), but because of how it changed the way I interacted with people. Learning to say no, to disagree, to draw boundaries, to realize friendships aren't transitive, to trust my own instincts, to believe that I have something to say and something worth saying while also holding open the possibility of being wrong, all of these are things I do imperfectly, but these things have made such a difference to me offline, from grad school to my current relationship with CB to how I now interact with my family.
So much of who I am right now is tied up so tightly with this blog, from experiences both happy and painful to some of the best friends I have. Thanks to everyone who has read and commented, past and present and hopefully future. These collections of words didn't just save my life so many years ago, they've shaped and molded it into something I never could have anticipated, and I'm so glad my tenth blogiversary is happening at a time I'm starting to post more and when so many other people seem to be too.
♥
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I don't know what I would have done, those first few years out of undergrad, if I hadn't had my blog, if I hadn't had people talking honestly and openly about therapy and meds, both things that absolutely terrified me. I don't know what I would have done without book recs and squee and people cheering me on when I got my first Real Job, particularly when I knew it was something my parents were not too happy with. I don't know what I would have done without you guys when my first boyfriend broke up with me, the sympathetic comments and treats in the mail and mix tapes (CDs) and phone calls all tangible proof that someone (many someones) out there cared.
This is how I first heard about Wiscon and how I decided to finally go in 2006, how I started to finally take what I had learned of feminism from you all and apply it to my experiences of being Chinese, to so many of the things that had bugged me in college that I couldn't quite put a finger on. This is how I learned to be angry and how I learned to speak up, how I learned that the best friends would listen and disagree and argue and it wouldn't be the end of the of the world, that Geek Social Fallacies were fallacies and not everyone I liked had to like each other. This is where I learned that what I had to say was important too.
I want to focus on this not because of how it changed my politics (because I've written a lot about that), but because of how it changed the way I interacted with people. Learning to say no, to disagree, to draw boundaries, to realize friendships aren't transitive, to trust my own instincts, to believe that I have something to say and something worth saying while also holding open the possibility of being wrong, all of these are things I do imperfectly, but these things have made such a difference to me offline, from grad school to my current relationship with CB to how I now interact with my family.
So much of who I am right now is tied up so tightly with this blog, from experiences both happy and painful to some of the best friends I have. Thanks to everyone who has read and commented, past and present and hopefully future. These collections of words didn't just save my life so many years ago, they've shaped and molded it into something I never could have anticipated, and I'm so glad my tenth blogiversary is happening at a time I'm starting to post more and when so many other people seem to be too.
♥
Comment | Read Comments (
) | Link