So here we are, seven years of my little corner of the internet! I like to mark occasions as it is important to remind ourselves of our achievements when life will do its best to minimise them.
This year like all of them, is very important to me, but perhaps like my first anniversary will be one that goes on to stick in my mind.
This year has seen me take on some of my biggest career highlights and achievements. Externally and internally I have worked harder than ever before. My TedxLondon talk was and is a huge milestone for me - and marked a pinnacle I had envisioned but assumed would allude me. Signing with a Literary agent, completing and announcing my next book. Huge things, a great year all around?
Well, this has been the year I have considered giving up the most. Of folding. Of walking away from freelance work. From influencing no longer. The confluence of a terrifying economic and social landscape has placed a toll on me like so many others, that it has felt bleak, bleak enough to want to run away.
Yet here I am, celebrating and commenting on my seventh anniversary. Essentially the opposite of giving up.
This year more than ever before my heart and mind have been so focussed. Not on myself, but on the LGBTQ+ community, particularly the trans community. I have realised my role is to help people do more than just survive, I think we deserve to love life. If there is a future for us, we have to be mentally capable when we get there.
So I show up to help, to offer support, to bring joy, to show you all how great being yourself can be. To some, it may seem like a thankless task, full of exertion with little return. We are in one of the most hostile environments - but my corner of the internet is the least hostile. It brings me so much joy whenever one of you reaches out and tells me the impact of my work - big or small.
I do what I do for you, to give back to those that worked so hard for the abilities and privileges I have. That is why I’ve been here for seven years, and I hope to continue to do so for much longer, whatever that may look like.
I couldn’t do it without you, the people who support me, both online and IRL. So thank you for helping us all get here! Here’s to the next seven!!
