One year ago, I went for it, opting to nail a bucket list item, by starting a resolution outside of the confines of that dreaded first week of the year, when failure looms heavily on all who try to make a change. One year ago, I was inspired to remove the dust from this URL, which I’d been squatting on for several years. Sensing that dot-coms were soon to run out, some years back, I had bought a number of domains for our family, in the event that we’d want them some day. That day was March 25, 2014.

I tend toward the perfectionist side of things, and in all my projects, I often prefer to work in a vacuum until “it’s ready”, at which point I’m happy to show off anything that I’ve been working on. But, rarely before then. This was the case in college, working on papers, rehearsing for juries and recitals, and even now, I prefer “grand openings” to “soft launches” in most everything I do. There’s something very anti-collaborative to that, I know, but on those projects which are “mine” and not “the team’s”, this is the way I operate, saying “This is me!” rather than “Help me figure out who I am.”

The quirks of this last paragraph signal several reasons that I never had gotten off the ground with my website prior to last March.

First off, I wanted to make a mark that I could be proud of. I tend to think that Version 1.0’s should be better than a Version 1.0, which is, of course, impossible. That froze me for quite some time. I had the URL, I had the drive, but I didn’t have the first post. Something that could stand on its own for the time-being, as the esteemed founding member of a developing collection of material that would put my stamp on the world. And, then—well… it should speak for itself, or else it hasn’t served its purpose. That first post served to represent my hopes for the site, my love of the arts, and got me on track to start writing again.

Encouraged to Proceed

“How Beautiful a Community” was my first reflective post, and many more would follow. I use the “reflections” tag for those works that have gotten me to think about myself differently, those that change me over the course of writing them. They’re the hardest to deal with, but leave me to sit back and feel accomplished developmentally. They have allowed me to think of those things which mean a lot to me, and led to the development of a new category, What It Means to Me. The site has let me have some fun with old school papers, entertain one fan of my site with difficult trivia that only he and I seem to “get”, and document a little music-listening project that changed my life over three years ago. It all stemmed from one, inspired post about a concert I’d attended.

But, still lying on the table was the fact that websites are living, breathing organisms (to borrow some overly clichéd verbiage), and that terrified me. If something is meant to change throughout its lifespan, how could someone like me present it, not just to friends and family, but to the world, without some sort of disclaimer or animated .gif of that yellow fellow with his shovel? Well, I lasted until April 4, when I posted the following notice. Not too intrusive, but it freed me to poke around with it, use it as my own playground, and live a little. “Hey,” it said, “I have better things in mind. Give me some leeway.”

Looking to the Future

Yeah, I waited a full quarter of the year to get moving, but it still ended up being my crowning achievement for 2014, and I remain very proud of what it’s done for me. 200 posts in one year, and nearly as many visitors! But, it hasn’t been about traffic for me this year. My initial aim has been to get into a habit, while developing some confidence to write, mostly for myself, but with the awareness that anyone in the world (not just a vetted collection of Facebook friends) can now see what’s on my mind. With each post, I think to myself, “Would I mind if someone learns this about me? Would I be willing to dig deeper with someone if they had seen this post?” If the answer is no, I probably wouldn’t have started the draft anyway.

Who knows what will come of the next years here. One of my goals so far has been to figure out what type of content would appear, so that I can redesign the layout, possibly as soon as this summer. Now that I have considered my different creative areas, I think I’m ready to move on a really make it my own.

My thanks are extended to anyone who has read any page of this site, and for those who have encouraged me thus far. You all know who you are, and I love you all!

-Rick