simpleek

Celebrating the birth of one’s blog may sound silly to some. As adults we begin to feel less enthusiastic about our birthdays and we almost wish we can forget it’s another year you’ve gotten a little older. But honoring the day or month your blog came to be is important for some of us because it’s a reminder that the very thing you made is still alive and going strong. I’m proud of my small corner of the Internet and I hope I never get tired of wanting to acknowledge it every year.

Around the time I’m able to write a little birthday post for simpleek, the actual blog’s birthday has already happened. November 1st to be exact. Despite never quite being able to publish my post on the day itself, the whole of November becomes a bit of a celebratory month for me personally. I’ve written plenty of special posts in the past for the occasion. Some reflect on the brief origins of simpleek, or others are about how the blog has grown and changed over the years since I first started it.

I won’t bore anyone with a retread of topics I’ve written about before. If you care to read any of the old blog birthday posts I’ve done for simpleek, you can use the search bar or click the simpleek tag to get a full listing of those. Instead, I’ll keep it brief.

Seven years is a long time to keep a blog, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I never thought I would still be writing it. I don’t have to keep it. I could easily retire the old girl and move onto focusing my energy on other leisure pursuits or hobbies. There’s still a novel I want to write, many books left to read, and certainly plenty more video games to play. But when the thought crosses my mind to shutdown simpleek, I can never bring myself to really do it. The blog has been a big part of my schedule and life that I wouldn’t know what to do without it. It’s not that I don’t already have a lot going on. Quite the opposite actually. My days and weekends get crammed with so much to do that it would be easier if I had a little less to do.

Time has been my biggest enemy, as it usually is for most people. We’re always looking for more time, for days to stretch out just a minute or two more to get an important task done while still having enough saved for yourself. My days usually start and end wondering how I’ve already used up what the day has given me. When everything else feels like a balancing act, you think the best course of action is to cut out the thing that’s really not necessary any more. The blog isn’t a necessity to keep, a byproduct of a time in my life when I needed a place to escape and lose myself in, but it’s not something I would want to give up if given a choice. Call it dogged determination or any number of those things. I never like to give up too easily.

A tight schedule sometimes makes it more of a challenge for me to write, especially longer posts where I like to examine and get more detailed about the topics I write. I personally think the quality of my writing suffers a bit when I’m not able to spend more than a week on those type of posts. At the end of the day, I try not to obsess over how imperfect my posts are. I focus on writing what I want to write and hope it’s good enough for people to want to read.

I may not always have a grand idea of what I’ll write from week to week. A lot of my topics happen spontaneously with no set plan in mind. But I suppose all great writing happens like that, doesn’t it? I say this every blog birthday and it never gets old—thank you to all my longtime followers and the new ones I’ve gathered this year. I appreciate the likes and comments I get every week. They never go unnoticed, and it only encourages me to keep doing what I’m doing.

Happy 7th Birthday, simpleek! You’re getting a little older, but you’ll remain in my heart as my baby that came from an idea and a wish to share my thoughts and experiences with the world. Looking forward to another year of writing ahead with you all!