15th Blogoversary

Wow. Just wow.

It’s been 15 years. Well, 7.5 years since the relaunch in 2014, but that’s half of my entire blogger life. I never thought I’d hang onto this for so long, but…

Here we are.

15 years.

Wow.

If I told the 16-year-old who started out with a small Swedish blog:

“One day, in 15 years, you’ll write reviews and get thousands of views and visitors.”

I would have laughed at myself. “Are you crazy? It would be nice if I have like two subscribers.” I would have gone back to what I was doing and never given it a second thought.

I never expected it, nor did I actually plan for it. I didn’t even dream of it.

Still, I’m sitting here writing a post for my blogoversary.

In these 15 years, I’ve lived at four places.

I moved away from home to a small room a couple of months before I turned 19, a year later I got my first one-bedroom apartment.

At the change of the year in 2015/2016 I moved to my current place, a one-bedroom apartment with an open plan (so it’s just literally one giant room, the bedroom and the loo).

I’ve lived in this apartment — blogged from this apartment for 5 and a half years. 5 and a half years I blogged from a smaller community in an apartment I liked more but was far away from everything.

In these 15 years, I’ve been in plenty of stages of life.

I started out as a teen. I was in secondary school and didn’t really have anything I’d call ‘friends’. I mean, I had friendly acquaintances, both online and offline, but no real friends, no. I got friends during this period of my life.

I moved out and struggled with finding a job and getting my university qualifications. My mother got cancer.

2013 happened.

Scream pandemic all you want and how horrible 2020 was — I agree, it was a terrible year — but nothing tops 2013 to me. Not yet. And it wasn’t just my mother passing away. It was so much going on that year that to me 2013 is just equivalent to the worst that could happen to me.

After that came a period of self-discovery, I suppose. And the blog got relaunched after all the technical issues I had in 2013. At this point in my life, my blog had become such a big part of my life already I wouldn’t part with it, even if I lost all of it. I found out I have a medical conditionl. I figured out what I wanted to do in my life.

A few years later I became a mother.

And now I’m here. Mother, servant of a cat, reviewer, and novelist. Anny. A month short of 31.

Gosh, I’m already about finished with my second year of my 30s. Time sure flies.

In these 15 years, I’ve blogged about many things.

We don’t have the old blog entries anywhere. I genuinely feel like it’s a loss. But at the same time, it might be good. I can look back at things fondly without looking at the 16-year-old’s blog entries and criticise them.

I began ‘life blogging’. I just shared bits and pieces of my life. It was nothing special, because I hadn’t much of a ‘life’. To fill the gap, I added my interests.

By 2010, the interests had entirely taken over and I had since long not only moved platforms, but also wrote in English. I would write long lists of upcoming anime and my expectations.

Dang, I had a lot of free time.

With the relaunch in January 2014, I decided to focus animated shows, comics, games and visual novels. It expanded over the past 7.5 years and well, today I write about fiction in general. I’ve come full circle, because I once again share some bits and pieces of my life, but instead of being a secondary school student, I’m an author.

I’m not as free as I was before. I don’t have the same energy to blog either. But like I hoped I would continue blogging for another 10 years when I had my 10th blogoversary, I hope to keep this up for another 15. This blog grows with me. It evolves and transforms. It acts like my space on the internet and is part of who I am, while also not me at all.

I don’t know what life will throw at me next, but I know this blog will remain.

Though I might have to give up on that monthly schedule because… wow, I’m busy and tired. This is my hobby, not a job, and while a schedule can be great, it’s just making me feel guilty for not posting on the last Sunday of the month if I’m not up for it because I’m too tired or not finished with a review yet.

I hope you’ll stay with me, grow with me, and give me some likes and comments, because sometimes this blog feels pretty darn lonely. xD Yo, I know you’re there.