With 2020 on the horizon, a lot of things have been popping up about what has happened in the last decade. This has lead to a lot of fun information and cute memes. It also had me thinking about just how I have changed in the course of the last 10 years. Some of the milestones that I went through getting me to the place I am in today.
Table of Contents
2010
At the start of the decade, I was three years into living in Houston, Texas. In a relationship that was starting only then to turn particularly toxic. Bouncing between jobs and school. At the time in my late 20’s almost nearly 30 and rather dreading it. I felt like I had made no accomplishments and was searching for anything to call my own.
March 2nd, 2012 is when I first got into doing reviews of sex toys. You can still find my very first review. Still up on Eden’s Fantasy, as I have never quite deleted the account. I stopped using it almost a year after as I had moved on to better companies and my own website to promote my reviews. As well as all the drama that went down. But it was the first time I felt like part of a community. It helped me realize a lot of what I was going through was not right. That my relationship was abusive. That I needed to get out.
I left Texas to return to Illinois, living with my parents. Depression hit me hard. I attempted to go back to gaming and still keep up with my blog. Though writing about sex when you are getting out of the headspace of abuse was hard. My blog took a serious hit, one or two posts every year. Watching the blogging community from afar. I look back at it now and know that my hiatus was part of my healing now. I did a lot of personal healing, tried dating but it didn’t quite take. Over the next few years, I on and off tried to keep up. Though not as well as I wanted to. I fell behind hard.
This year was a lot of changes, leading to my last big move. It started out with the wobbling baby steps into nonmonogamy. Not done well, with the worst communication. Ending in an impulse of a tattoo and taking a headfirst dive into depression. But that year ended with a trip that changes my life. Meeting new people who I did not know a year from then I would call family.
In the dead cold of February, I moved to Pittsburgh. The last big move I have done. There are smaller moves but I stay in Pittsburgh the whole time. A few months later, I was having major surgery. It was actually that weekend I was deciding to make the changes I needed to make with my blog. The start of what would become Witch of the Wands was forming even then. I found myself in a relationship with two loving people. Returning to a healthy kink relationship with my boyfriend. Things were looking up. I tried hard to get back into blogging under my old name again by the end of the year.
We moved to a bigger house at the start of the year. I was starting to get back into the swing of writing on my old blog. But in the middle of summer, the fire happened. It threw me off again. But it was that fire, that sort of rising from the ashes that I finally kind of lit a fire under myself. Working hard to build my new site. Working hard to maintain relationships with the community and the wonderful companies I loved. I entered my third relationship as well. Our little family here at home became stronger as we worked to find our new home.
This is where I learn, I make a lot of choices and changes in February. Not sure why. Perhaps it is because that is when my mind tends to come out of hibernation or just my odd luck. But the end of February is when I launched Witch of the Wands. With a backlog of old reviews from my former site and a ton of new ones ready to go. It was also the first year I got to attend a conference, going to Woodhull. Meeting the community that has kept me going for almost 10 years now. It is what inspired me to come out as non-binary. To be me.
More job changes. Buying a house. Becoming more comfortable with my body. My sexuality. Everything. Embarking on a large tattoo cover-up. Getting to spend more time with other bloggers and educators at another Woodhull. Making genuine connections with people who I think of now as friends. I keep building and learning. Opening up more with my blog. Becoming more comfortable in my skin. While there is still a lot of me catching up and making up for the lost time. I am not unhappy about it. I know that I am going to grow and flourish even more.
I want to grow. I want to continue to transform into the person that I want to be. I want to continue being part of the community that has been a part of my life. Even when it was only at a distance it kept me going. I want to give back to it and do what I can.
I end this decade a hell of a lot more queer than I started. Happier than I have ever been. Finally finding pleasure in not just sex but life. If 28 year old me knew just where she would be today. I don’t think she would believe it. But I am glad that I am where I am. I have excitement as I look forward to what the next ten years might hold for me.
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