it hadn't occured to me exactly why i wanted to do this at first but a few years ago i vaguely decided that i wanted to start a blog. the original venue i had in mind was tumblr but then i told my brothers about wanting to start a blog and in their usual fashion they told me i was stupid and shot it down. to this day i've never made a tumblr account and i would go blogless for a few years after this, still always kinda thinking in the back of my mind that i would want to start one.
i had hinted about this in the first johnny foreigner post (and when i say hinted, i mean stated quite clearly) but i've struggled alot the past few years (maybe much longer than that) with having endless seemingly unsatisfiable cravings for validation and a sense of community. It just wasn't until last year around maybe august that i gained an ounce of self-awareness, and it really hit me that that might be why i spend so much of my waking life on reddit and other social media. it was this realization that made me unsubscribe from r/askreddit and r/ifyoulikeblank, where i'd often leave buried comments when i just wanted to be heard or agreed with.
i'm still pretty hopelessly addicted to reddit, but one day last november i scrolling around on the frontpage. and i saw a post on r/internetisbeautiful that was basically a window into sadgirl.online's page on neocities and after reading her manifesto and several of the articles and links posted there, i knew i wanted in.
that's basically what i expect. but strangely, it's considerably less disappointing that no one's reading this here than no one hearing me on reddit or other social media. i don't know if it's because there's no upvotes, likes, comments, mentions, etc. to create metrics to be disappointed by. but i think it's good for me to have this site, and i feel kinda dumb for waiting this long to make one.
i mean, over the years i've typed pages and pages of comments and posts and status updates, thought to myself "hey, no one actually cares about this", deleted all the text, and done it over again a few weeks later on a different subject or whatever. and sure no one cares here either, but if anyone is actually reading this, it's because they want to be here and not because i'm clogging their feed or whatever.
while this has been a great outlet and i finally feel at liberty to post basically whatever i want however i want, i still crave validation and community and i still haven't exactly found healthy ways to cope with or satisfy those cravings. it probably speaks to that, that i'm making this site at all as opposed to writing a physical journal or just being ok and comfortable alone with my thoughts.
but i think maybe part of the reason i'm opting for site instead of journal is that part of me hopes others will make their own personal sites too.
probably wishful thinking