To My Blog, on Its Fifth Birthday

Dear [clever title],

What a long, strange journey this has been.

You know, five years is a long time.

It’s longer than I’ve lived anywhere, except my childhood home.

It’s longer than I’ve had most of the clothes in my closet.

But not all of them.

It’s longer than any relationship I’ve had.

BY. YEARS. (But you knew that.)

Let’s take a moment to compare my world today with the world in which I was living when I started you.

January 2007:
I was 23.
I lived in Park Slope (again) in a small two-bedroom apartment with my friend, S.
I was working as an office assistant at a laboratory developing microbicides.
I was single.
I had lots of debt from using my credit card because I didn’t make any money and I lived in an expensive city.
I was listening to Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Green Day, Gnarls Barkley, and Fall Out Boy, among others.
I was watching The Hills, American Idol and American Idol Rewind, Scrubs, Sex and the City, Extreme Makeover, Family Guy, Supernanny, Beauty and the Geek, and Miami Ink, among others.
I spent evenings either hiding from the city or spending too much money at bars and trying to meet men and being consistently sorely disappointed by them.

January 2012:
I am 28.
I live in Boston in a large three-bedroom apartment with two lovely ladies and down the street from my cousin and her daughter.
I am working with kids every day at a fantastic organization.
I am single.
I have lots of debt from paying for a Master’s degree myself.
I am listening to Adele, Florence + the Machine, Kelly Clarkson, Cee-Lo, Pink, Lady GaGa, and Beyonce, among others.
I am watching How I Met Your Mother, Glee, Modern Family, 30 Rock, Community, Dexter, Mad Men, and So You Think You Can Dance, among others.
I spend most of my evenings lying in my bed, watching NetFlix.

Upon reflection, it doesn’t seem like my life has changed all that much. Or maybe that my WORLD hasn’t changed that much.

But you know better than anyone that if we read you from the beginning and then fast-forwarded to more recent posts, the drastic change is evident.

I’m pretty much an entirely different person from who I was when I started you.

And it’s the years between 2007 and 2012 that changed everything.

And, I suppose, you have changed as I’ve changed, from a place to vent and process things to a place where I wrote down observations about the world around me that didn’t seem to include me to an outlet for all my insecurities and frustrations around moving and figuring out what the hell to do with my life to a catalog of all the work I’ve done in the field I discovered to a place to write about all the important pop culture events that I have paid attention to and finally to a silly retelling of how the job I’m doing now is affecting and changing me, daily and swiftly.

Who knows what my world will be like in the next five years?

(Got any predictions?)

Happy 5th birthday, dear [clever title]!

Thanks for being exactly what I’ve needed for five years.

You’ve kept me sane, you’ve made me more confident, you’ve introduced me to new people, you’ve reconnected me with people I knew in a past life, you’ve been a kind, gentle place to cry and a fun, always willing place to have a laugh.

You are and have always been wholly accepting of who I am and who I’ve become.

I wish you many more years of full, creative life, and here’s to the commemorative post I’ll write in 2017, when we’re 10!

Love your faithful friend,

Annie