A Toast to the Blog Collab

This post is all about you, Blog Collab. February 2020 marks 5 years of watching and reviewing painfully bad (and occasionally brilliant) films with my partner in crime, Christa. I can’t think of anything I’ve done consistently for 5 years besides overindulge when it comes to raw cookie dough, so this is a big fucking deal.

When I signed up for the WordPress-created Blogging 101 course, I had no idea it would transform my blogging practice. My main goal was to develop a regular writing practice, and I really hoped to build a blogging community. Considering the number of people who blog and the range of topics they focus on, it seemed unlikely I would find others who shared my interests and frequently bizarre sense of humor. It didn’t help that I wasn’t exactly trying—I was usually doing the bare minimum assigned for the course, and I absolutely dreaded the weeks when I had to go comment on random blogs. I felt everyone had kind, clever comments to make, and my contributions were the equivalent of sending a “hey” DM.

How overwhelmingly unlikely then—perhaps bordering on miraculous—that I found such a warm, wonderful, witty, and witchy blog partner in the form of Christa. We have only met IRL once, but we’ve shared a goal and many traumatically horrible movies that have made the distance feel small. I am positive she would be embarrassed, but I’m constantly inspired by her style, artistic eye and expression, and truthfulness about times when life isn’t exactly a bowl of cherries.

I say without judgment that so many of the bloggers I met 5 years ago are no longer on WordPress. Possibly because many people have moved on from blogging to other forms of social media or their lives are simply busy with other priorities.

Five years on, I’m certainly not in this for the likes or the (non-existent) ad revenue. I can’t speak for others, but the main reason I’m still blogging is because of my incredible blog partner who keeps me accountable and encourages me to continue writing.

I don’t have a lot of followers, but I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done. I feel immensely happy we have become and stayed friends and supported each other, especially given the rollercoaster the last few years have been–personally and basically on a global scale. As sensitive, anxious people who worry about the state of the world, we have both struggled to hold onto some sense of compassion and hope. I’m incredibly proud of our growth, and the ways we have made our own meaning and purpose even when things feel beyond our control. I certainly wouldn’t claim that blogging replaces therapy (I’ve been in and out of counseling throughout the Blog Collab), but it’s very much a therapeutic activity. We have most definitely pushed ourselves to challenge our boundaries.

And we have absolutely put the work in; conservatively, we each write around 750 words per week because of the Blog Collab. Over the past 5 years, that totals 195,000 words, i.e. the length of a novel. And not just any novel: we’re approaching Deathly Hallows levels with that word count, or any number of books that could cause serious physical injury with very little effort.

So here’s to you, Blog Collab, and of course my gem of a blog wife, Christa. I won’t lie; I am still going to worry obsessively about right wing extremists, climate change, white supremacy, misogyny, global pandemics, genocide, nuclear war, and the fact that I worry too much. I’m positive my blog is doing nothing to make any of these problems better. All I know is my life would be infinitely worse without you, Blog Collab. And in that spirit I toast to you and all of the coincidences that occurred to make the collab fall so fortuitously into place. Here’s to another 5 years!