Exactly one year ago today, I had just gotten back home to Sacramento after a six hour road trip from southern California for Thanksgiving. Once I got home, I immediately took out my laptop, logged onto the WordPress website, and began to type out my first blog post. A few days prior, I went to Skid Row to feed the homeless, and figured that would be a great story to kick off my blogging adventures with (if you haven’t read that blog post yet, it is available here). Since then, I have been bombarded by experience after experience, all of which have found their way onto this website in one form or another. To you, the reader, I give the most heartfelt of Thank Yous for coming along for the ride.

Plenty of people are often surprised – and dare I say impressed – upon hearing that I have a blog, mostly because blogging isn’t as popular as it used to be a decade ago (get with the times, Walt – it’s all about Twitter and Instagram now). But I think the main reason why people are so astonished at the fact that I started a blog is that if you know me personally, you know that I am oftentimes the quietest and most tight-lipped person in the room, and the fact that I have decided to display my thoughts on such a public platform seems a little out of character for me. But just because I am quiet and don’t often share my opinions vocally doesn’t mean I don’t have them. Starting a WordPress blog was my outlet to finally let people into this seemingly elusive mind of mine, and allow people to know what was going on inside the wits of this subdued Daria-meets-Eeyore-esque character that I have embodied.

Whenever people go out of their way to tell me that they like what I write, or that they even read my blog the night before, it truly means everything to me. The way I see it, you can literally do just about anything else with your time – the fact that you take five minutes out of your day to read what I have to say is so shocking to me, it almost seems absurd that anyone would care about what I have to say. Starting this blog was simply an outlet for me to outwardly express my thoughts, it wouldn’t have mattered to me if nobody read it. But in the one year that I have been on this website, I have garnered thousands of views from dozens of different countries around the world – and that means everything to me.

Over the past year, I have not only learned how to find my voice, but I have also found that I have one. I’ve drafted, written, and crafted my way to where I am now, picking up bits and pieces of my confidence along the way. Although the view count on each of my posts remains somewhat modest, I can assuredly say that I have accomplished so much more within myself that no number, no matter how significant, of readers or subscribers could ever do for me, which is getting me to the level of confidence and self-assurance that I’m at right now.

And so to end this flowery-worded “Life is Beautiful” blog post, to you the reader, I say thank you for helping me find myself, my voice, and my confidence that I lacked so much of a year ago. I look forward to more blogging adventures, and to see where this all takes me.