It's so painful looking back at the meager collection of old posts on this blog. So many things jump out at me, hopes and rationalizations, naiveté and avoidance. The last post is like carbon dating to a personal asteroid that wipes out my mammoth dreams, waking up to a nightmare.
This is the first time I've really really wanted to show people my website. That feels weird considering the number of times that I've spent all night redesigning this thing. The last few years I kinda just let the frustration settle over me - it feels like I have to have one, but my website has never been anything particularly useful to me. Well, now it is. My skills and the AI have finally reached a point to where I actually had fun redesigning it this time, making it into a new digital canvas.
It was the first action item of a personal brand audit. Sole enterprises so often feel like professional self-involvement, so I figured why not take it seriously for once. I leaned into the crushing self-doubt of the last few years to look my messy digital footprint in the compound eye, accepting what I can't change and figure out what to do with the rest. I systematically eliminated all things I personally found cringe - even in tiny doses - and replacing them with things I actually love, albeit within the need to create structure around my varied endeavors. It felt like sculpting - shaving away bulk to show a true form and purpose. Self love and acceptance sounds complicated until you realize it's loving the little things of existence as a guiding principle, and not excluding yourself for once. I still feel pretty overwhelmed, but I can already see the hints of a form emerging.
I don't know what I am right now. I don't really know what my life is beyond the things I can't talk about. But I hope it unfolds like this site, with a new pride that comes from digging deep for that which no one can take away.
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