It's my Blogiversary!

It's 5days late...but whatever!

Yeah, my blog turned 3...five days ago! Every year, on the Blogiversary, I go back to read my very first post. There are some typos there and some messed up formatting, but I'm leaving those there so that every year when I look back, I can actually see how far I've come. The bulk of this year was spent trying to find my blog's niche, but now that I've gone back to read that first post, I have no idea why I stressed about the whole niche thing. I made it pretty clear at the beginning that I would be "writing whatever I please on here".

Maybe it's the broadness of that statement or maybe it's my preoccupation with the potential of monetizing my blog that drove me to look at other bloggers to see how things were being done. Or it could have just been me trying to grow. It most likely was a mix of all of that.

I'm big on mentoring; whether it's active mentoring or just close observation of an object of interest, I think there's wisdom in learning from those who have gone before us. With regard to my blog, I figured I'd learn from my e-big sisters. But in reality, I ended up comparing my level 3 with other people's level 100, and my jollof rice with their kale chips, a.k.a recipe for feeling inadequate. And inadequate indeed I began to feel.  It turned out my style of living and writing don't match up with the ideas in my head of 'a successful blog". Still, my comparison and observation from afar were productive. I found a whole circle of people (who I like to call my tribe), and it turns out we have a name! We're called personal bloggers! We exist! Haha! I'm not just this solo over-sharing kid on the Internet. 

I found this on Instagram a while back and I think it's gold!

Which brings me to the topic of naming. What's the big deal about it? For the story you just read, it's the feeling of belonging to something. So it's not really about the name, but about the community (I think). Okay so never mind then.This post was meant to review my year in blogging, which I think it successfully has. Overall, I'd say it's been awesome. 

Also,  “hellloooo from the con-sis-tency siiiiiiide!” (*insert Adele’s voice*). Aren't you proud of how often I’ve posted this year? Oh you didn't notice? Go archive digging and notice! This month, life got pretty busy and I've not really posted all that I planned to. But I'm going to spend my waiting time (at the airport going back to Canada) to backlog on all my blogposts. So stay tuned!

Oh and thank you!  Thank you for being here, for reading and browsing and commenting. I can't really figure out why it matters atm, but it does. And I want to thank you for being here! THANK YOU!