One Year Blogiversary!!

I really do find it extremely strange to think that it has been a year to the day, since my first post. A year...it seems unbelievable! Oh and what a post it was too. It was entitled "What Up?" and said this:

"Well it seems everyone is jumping on the blog bandwagon, and so I am giving it a shot of my own. I'll probably post poems, talk about my love of movies and talk about just general stuff and rant of course...when I remember I have a blog. See, I was never much good at keeping a journal or diary so this may start off strong and fizzle, or maybe no one will even read this, but even if they don't, hey...maybe I will have an online journal I can print out one day.
But seriously, these are my personal meanderings, so they may seem to veer aimlessly from subject to subject at times, but it's just from my perspective. My thoughts tend to be scattered, but hey...maybe yours are too!"

Yup that gem was how it all started. What the heck was the matter with me...what up??!! Oy the pain of the lameness I am known for. But none-the-less, a miracle happened. I stuck with it. I even exceeded any expectations I ever had in my dreams. I have often posted multiple times in a day! I have more than 400 posts. I, who can't write in a journal more than 2 days before forgetting about it and years pass, have been steadily writing for a year now!

I have been able to do things I never thought myself capable of. I decided after about 3 weeks maybe, that I was going to be 100% me on this blog. I was going to be honest and open and let it all hang out there, for the world to see. I decided to start writing about how I actually felt, to share my battle with depression and other mental disorders, like Social Anxiety and OCD. I decided to tell people I had a gastric bypass, and went into every minute detail of my experience with it. I decided I was just going to be me.

The more I wrote, the more something inside of me was set free. I was writing about things I didn't think I could ever talk about, not even to people I have known forever, and it was scary, but it was liberating too. Oh yeah, it has been scary. I worried what people would think of me, how I would be judged. If revealing the real me, would end up being a mistake. That it would make me lose these friends I was making through the Blog World, because they would see me as some sort of freak. But the feeling I got, as I wrote down my feelings and worries, it felt good. Scary but it felt so right too. Like talking out the bad, or even the good, from that day and sharing it, was helping me somehow. I still don't know how, but I can feel that this helps me.

And people were responding to me, encouraging me and giving me words of advice and love. Through luck I found Kristina in the beginning, and she suggested a few friends of hers as people to read and respond to, and they, a miracle to me, became my friends too. And then I found more and more amazing people that I liked and they liked me too and started leaving me comments. People actually found what I had to say worthwhile and interesting. Which gave me more courage to write and to comment on their blogs. It started getting easier to believe that people actually liked my blog.

Sure, I have my issues with self esteem, so I still worry, what will people think about this post? I wonder when I only get one or two people commenting, am I losing my friends, have I gotten less interesting? But the thing is, I am being me, and if I change my blog to attract more followers, is that worth it? It will mean I am not being myself and I think that is what has kept me blogging. For a whole year now. So if being myself means I never get over 60 readers, I am trying ( hey I am being honest) to be okay with that. It means those people actually care about me and what I have to say. They stick by me, through the good funny stories, and the rants about my darkest feelings. And those are the people who really count.

I have found a little piece of the net, where I belong. And I have found friends here who make the days easier, make the days funnier, just make my day sometimes with a simple comment. I have been blessed with the people I have encountered through my blog. No wonder, I have been able to keep at it. I have made too many friends, real friends, to want to stop talking to them about my days, or to stop hearing about theirs. I have learned so much from all of you. I have found people who actually LIKE me rambling about movies, and found their ramblings about movies fascinating to read.

I can only hope I can continue with this. This has been so good for me. In so many ways. This has been a place to express the real me and feel accepted. This has been almost like a journal, something I have never been able to do before. This has been therapeutic in some ways, because I have found people who have felt the same way and have given me hope and great advice.

I am so proud to have made it to One Year, and can't wait to say I have made it to another! In celebration of blogging for a whole year, I will be doing a giveaway when I get back to CT. This is no review and giveaway, but a Giveaway hosted solely by me, for you guys. I have some shopping to do, but I do have one thing I have been holding onto, from The Body Shop. That is all I will say for now. LOL.

So thank you for being great friends, and for reading my blog! I appreciate each and every one of you! And I hope in one year I can say it all again!!