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I didn’t start blogging out of passion. I started because somebody told me I needed a website. Truth is, I didn’t even know what a blog was. I opened an account here on WordPress, a couple more elsewhere, and thought traffic would just follow me, the way stray dogs follow a food truck. Wrong. This place sat dead for nearly ten years—so long I forgot it existed—until one random day in 2022 when a notification lit up my screen. A new like. WTF? From where? I clicked the link and landed back here, staring at the ghost of myself.

When I first began, I was faceless. Anonymous. That mask was armor, and it gave me freedom. I could bleed here, collapse here, spit out my fears and grief without worrying who was watching. At events I’d hear people talk about my work—sometimes praise, sometimes poison—and they had no idea the person standing close enough to smell their cologne was the one who wrote it. Sometimes I’d even push them, ask what they really meant, still hiding my identity like a loaded gun in my pocket.

Then came the rupture. Tragedy. Exposure. Suddenly there was a face to the words. My face. And Mangus died in that moment. The mask was gone, and anonymity was stripped clean.

Why did I come back? Simple: the people here. When nobody read my words, I read theirs. Hours spent slipping into voices from around the world, getting lost in stories that weren’t mine. Even without traffic on my end, the connection was real. Still is, when I manage to claw time out of the chaos. Since 2023 this blog has grown beyond what I imagined it could be. Grateful doesn’t come close. Appreciation feels too small. What I feel is heavier, messier. It sits with teeth in it.

Now I blog to bleed. To heal. To rage. To rejoice. To carve my words into the silence before it swallows me again. Blogging reminded me who I was before chaos dictated my breath, and it taught me something else, too: the strength was always mine. I just forgot where I left it.

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Author’s Note: The support I receive from my WordPress peeps keeps me motivated and engaged. Thank you. What started as a faceless outlet has turned into something I never imagined—a place where words aren’t just spilled but witnessed. Every like, every comment, every late-night read means more than I can put cleanly into words. You all remind me that writing doesn’t have to echo in a vacuum. It can breathe. It can bruise. It can belong.

So yeah—I’ll keep showing up here, scars and all.