Hello, World! no. 734

Today is my blog’s 6th birthday and post number 734.

I remember sitting in my yellow room in Wyoming—hunched up on a cheap chair on a particleboard desk at my HP computer—setting up a wordpress.com blog. An automatic “Hello, World!” post and example comment is part of every new install.

It was my junior year of college. I was procrastinating because I was excited about about my first trip to Europe. So I set up a blog. This would begin a long saga of promising to write things that I never would, infrequent posts full of typos, and me becoming a wordpress expert among my friends. Cheers!

I was thinking about all the things that have changed in 6 years:

• I’ve had 9 addresses in five different states (not including times I’ve had to moved back home to transition)
• I met Katie, Sarah, and Grant, who I now talk to every week.
• I’ve traveled. A lot.
• I’ve gotten two degrees. (Worked full-time twice!)
• Had 3 Friendsgivings in New York.
• 2 car accidents (and have pretty much stopped driving now)

There is so much life packed into those humble little bullet points. It makes me wonder if (or speculate that) there eventually becomes a span of six years where you end up not changing much. Is that scary, preventable, or inevitable?

On the opposite side of things, here are the things that haven’t changed in 6 years:

• I still am an atrocious speller and editor. (ex: the ‘e’ will forever sneak into the world ‘scary’)
• I’m still good friends with my homies, Igor & Carissa.
• Still my own procrastination monger monster
• Still knit/crochet, doodle, write, take pictures, and cook
• Still don’t know enough about current events, pop-culture, music, and politics as I should
• Still terrible at singing and playing the ukulele

But even those activities have varied so I can’t say they’re completely the same. I suspect it actually takes more concentrated effort to maintain a routine and prevent change than you think. I suspect you don’t need to measure a span of time by the things that change and stay the same. I guess if in six years it’s over all net positive, you should consider yourself lucky and be happy.

It has been, I do, and I mostly am. 🙂