Bloggiversary!

It’s been a year! Already!
365 days, 8,760 hours, 52 weeks – call it whatever you want. An anniversary well deserved.

On this day 12 months ago I started this blog. My very own writing experience, my little world, my small realm of shelter. Opened up to a then still undiscovered online community. How little did I know how much fun it can be to share one’s own stories with practical strangers. Or how fascinating it can be to read about their daily lives and deepest emotions online, expressed without a feeling of shame.

One year of blogging, and the only piece of advice I have for you is: Do it! Do it now! Don’t push it off, don’t think about just doing it, simply DO it. It took me well over half a year to finally find the time and courage and interest to really start my own page on WordPress. And sometimes I wish I had done it earlier. Nothing can turn back time, nothing can express your current feelings and experiences so well than the present itself.

Inspired by these ladies, who turned their extensive roadtrip through the US into the best read of American history, I finally decided to write this time of my life down. And it was exactly what I had needed. Expressing my thoughts, concerns, and views in refreshing stories – stories found by other bloggers and commented on by like-minded or different-minded people. It has its appeal to see how your own life is being dissected and listened to by complete strangers. People I have most of the time never met but who have stuck with me throughout the year and who I still enjoy communicating with.

My life has been enriched by blogging, not deprived, as I had originally thought.

After one year, I take with the confidence I have gained in writing over the course of 12 months. I have discovered my love for word puns and I am more at ease in coming up with posts or themes.

I am also taking with a new feeling for time management, especially after having started a life- time-consuming job half a year ago and still trying to maintain this blog. Which has helped me in seeing these matters in a more relaxed way: There is no pressure to write, so when I write, I write because I want to. I am not aiming to come up with the next best post or a brilliant text. I simply want to get certain things off my shoulders and I value other readers’ opinions.

This WordPress page and its followers have helped me in setting my priorities and pursuing my dreams, even though you might not have realized this. Each one of you has motivated me in some sense or has opened up a whole different world to me, which has given me the ability to dream. Of better times, of different times, of exciting times – of adventure. All across the globe.

But also in real life this blog has helped me in various ways: In obtaining writing gigs, finding a roommate in New York, and meeting people with passion. Perhaps a shared passion: Traveling, writing, taking pictures, and simply experiencing the 1001 wonders this world has to offer. I hope it has inspired at least one person to start his or her own blog or to travel the world without the fear of being lost.

One thing it has definitely been is a very fun time. The 137 posts I’ve come up with in the past year have all been self-created, self-thought, and self-expressed.

1 year of blogging – learned so much, but taking with only the best. Thank you, fellow readers!