Today, Nerdy Girl Notes turns nine years old.
Nine years. Almost a decade.
So much has changed in those nine years—the kind of writing I do here, the number of posts I write, and the version of me who’s writing those posts.
But today, I’m not really thinking about what’s changed.
I’m thinking about what hasn’t.
And that’s you—my friends, my fellow fangirls (and fanboys), my NGN Family.
No matter how long I go between posts, no matter what crazy new obsession I try to drag all of you into, no matter how much I overshare, you’re still here.
And this year, more than any other, that knowledge saved me.
I have made no secret of the fact that this year has been one of the hardest—if not the hardest—years of my life. And for a long part of it, I actively stayed away from NGN, despite the extra time I had and the fandoms I could have written about. I stayed away because I was afraid that I would come back to this place and it wouldn’t feel the same. I was afraid that this would become just another online space where I was screaming into the void. I was afraid that this little corner of the internet that had been my most fulfilling source of connection for so many years wouldn’t be that anymore at a time when I needed connection more than I’d ever needed it before.
I was so afraid.
But then I did something that’s really hard for me to do when I’m scared—I stopped running away. I wrote one thing and then another (and another…). I opened my eyes after keeping them shut for so long because I was afraid that I’d see that even this—my safe space for the last nine years—had changed in a year that felt like it had changed everything else.
But when I opened my eyes, there you were.
And I knew—even though things still felt bad and I was still scared and every post was an exercise in trusting that I wasn’t going to chase all of you away with my vulnerability and obvious clinginess—I knew things were going to be OK.
Because I have you.
Because I came home.
Home means different things to different people, but to me, home has always meant safety.
That’s what NGN has become for me over the last nine years. It’s the place where I feel safe enough to be myself, to share hard things, and to trust that I’m not alone in whatever I’m feeling.
And that’s what I hope it is for you too.