If 10 years ago someone told me that I’d still be here after all this time, I probably wouldn’t believe it. But here we are: it’s the 10th anniversary of my blog in this platform, so it’s a small birthday to celebrate. Hooray!

For my 7th anniversary, I already told the story of the day I opened this site. If you’re interested, you can check it out in HERE. For this post, I decided to tell another story: how I came to blogging in the first place. Maybe it will inspire anyone to leave all the doubts behind and start writing as well.

My love for writing (sorry in advance for using this word too often in this post) comes from childhood: I had always been writing different fantastic stories and short silly poems. When I got a little older, I started writing down my thoughts in a personal essay form. At that time, I never thought I was good at it, it was just a creative way to get rid of all the worries and wonderings that were haunting me. Everything changed when I started my tutoring year in order to enter university in 2013. I 16 at that time. My teacher saw my true potential and prompted me to write. Throughout the months, she helped me get better with expressing my point of view in a right and interesting way. And, of course, to get much better with my grammar, as I used to make lots of mistakes. But most importantly, she encouraged me to follow my passion and made me see that I was good at this. She became my mentor, for which I’ll forever be thankful to her. Later, when I met a university professor who made me question my skills, I realized the importance of teachers. They can either push you to become better or discourage and completely break you.

In 2014, I found out that there are special platforms where one can create their blog sites. And I found one. I don’t recall its name now, but I remember being so excited to show my “creations” to others. I remember how happy I was when I received my first like, first comment and follower. None of my close people knew about my “secret hobby”, except for my mom. For some reason, I found the mere thought of my acquaintances reading my posts truly embarrassing, even though I wasn’t writing anything controversial. Anyway, back to the story.

After a while, my engagement got quite high. I was even invited to a club of the best bloggers of that platform, which was such an honor to me. In order to be in that club, I had to write articles on certain topics that they came up with. At first, it was fun, and I took my duties very seriously. However, after a short while, I realized that I don’t like being told what to write about. It was just my hobby, and I wanted to cover the topics that interested me. Suddenly it all felt like a heavy burden, which wasn’t the initial purpose of my page. So, I decided that it’s time to say goodbye to that page, as I felt like I lost my inspiration to write at all.

After a few months since I’d closed my previous blog, I found out about this platform. Now I try to remember how I learned about WordPress, but sadly I failed. Anyway, I decided to give my love for blogging another try. And, as you can see, it was a successful one. I’ve been writing here for 10 years now. This page has turned from an online diary with my shared thoughts and emotions into a proper blog, where I try to come up with various interesting, inspiring and beneficial topics to cover. I started treating this page more seriously, I’ve studied and evolved a lot. I’ve come a long way, but I know that I still have a lot to discover and learn.

There were some periods when I took short breaks, because I had a writer’s block, but in general I guess I can say, that I have been writing in here on a regular basis. Now, 10 years later, I have almost 1000 followers, which may be very little and insignificant to others, but very special and important to me. I have people, who read my posts, get inspired from them, share their opinions, which is truly awesome. If it weren’t for this blog, I may have never come to working my dream’s job and becoming a journalist, as I wouldn’t have become so closely connected with the written word.

So, this was the story of my path as a blogger. I want to end this post by saying a huge thank you to everyone, who’s been reading and supporting me throughout the years. It’s strange how sometimes total strangers will cherish for you much stronger, than your close people. And I think it’s even more meaningful when a person you don’t know supports you. So thanks again for that!