But first, a TLDR;

• I started blogging on Steemit on 8 April 2018
• I blogged here for about 10 weeks and made 21 posts
• My last post here was made on 20 June (and sucked, read others)
• I left because ~~ I didn't know how to prioritise my life and I wasn't clear on my intentions for being here~~ I suck
• I can't believe a year has passed, life has been ridiculous - I hope you're amazing and well
• I'm really thankful for the support I received when I was here
• I wanted to write to you all
• This gets longer than expected
• I still don't really know what I'm doing

Hoooooooo boy, HELLO!

Here I am back at Steemit and Busy.

And there you are on this post! Somehow! Some way!

Hello again

Hi, I started writing on Steemit a little over a year ago - It was my first time having a decent crack at blogging.

I didn't commit to anything particularly; I had things I wanted to write about, I had a voice I wanted to start building, I had things to explore, I had people to e-meet and connect with, and I wanted to see what my writing and interaction could do for people.

And boy was I treated, I was treated so well.

I was greeted incredibly on my introduction post and my posts following. I had people reach out to me to give me tips, I had readers reach out saying they were inspired - there weren't tons of people and I always had a voice whispering, 'they're just bots' (which is a really scary thought by the way) but despite this! Any amount of people and interaction was humbling, maybe I'm easy but I really appreciated your attention and interaction, and you all stuck around while I processed what it was for me begin my journey creating public things and begin forming my own voice.

People witnessed my personal growth and it seems on occasion, this added some value to people who were dealing with their own creative anxiety, which is really, really incredible.

Even looking at this materially, one of my posts was recognised by a reasonably large Steemit account and earned a pretty nice reward for it, it was only my 8th post!

I remember waking up in the morning and checking my post to see 450+ upvotes - I wasn't sure what had happened, and I wasn't sure what to do - do you know how crazy that is! I put more into that post than I did any other and I was reasonably happy with it by the end but I didn't expect this, I was just happy to have put in the work and come out with something! Never the less I was really excited. I remember being a little confused why there were no comments, and that's when I really realised that engagement and interaction is what made me tick - the monetary reward is great, but I learned I really value discussion, connection. @angelacs making the first comment and breaking the ice (thank you!), how nice that was.

While I'm at, sending some thanks to..:

• @aka-alias for making me the Thankyou.gif out of my hand-writing
• @dedicatedguy for your awesomeness
• @enchantedspirit for your incredible knowledge and writing
• @indigoocean for your amazing knowledge and writing
• ++ everyone else who reached out on my posts and supported me during my short journey here.

Despite all the support I got from everyone, I didn't stay.

In Long-short, Why I left Steemit Blogging

I started on Steemit at the start of April and by the end of May, I had a string of changes to my professional life - adulthood was starting to catch up with me. I was living on my own when I started on Steemit in March-ish, but a new job meant a 35% pay cut and my lifestyle had to adjust. Apart from that, I connected with a pre-funding startup and was trying to keep myself alive and not lose passion for my own writing.

So now, I had a fresh job at a growing startup, and was part of a distributed team for an angel-funded startup which couldn't really pay me. But I loved all the people I was starting to work with, and I loved the unique value I had to offer. I was losing balance though, working 10-14 hours a day and it's taken me 10 months to realise I was completely mis-prioritising my life, and I'm still adjusting to that now.

Lots of work, lots of change, lots of stress

I came very close to losing my mind on many occasions - some days I was writing a few thousand words for my work, however I was dealing with massive mental and moral conflicts, which I seem to keep finding.

It was my first time writing professionally and I had only just begun going through my own creative process, now I was handling the public representation of a business that was going through a massive growth phase from 10 staff to 40 staff - Not only that, the business had just launched the Private Sale of the tokenisation of its network currency; even now, a year later from then, the token sale is ongoing and has rebranded itself to go with the maturing cryptocurrency space - the tactics they were using really clashed with some of my beliefs however, and for the last year, my core beliefs about decentralisation, technology, people, business and pretty much everything, have been tested.

And now, I'm free, kind of back to square-one, except with new connections and with a range of new experience and failures behind me - I know there's heaps more to go, of course there is more to go - however here I am - with a clean-ish slate - no, my slate isn't clean. I've got people that I know I've disappointed, and that gets to me, because I know I slacked off, I know I didn't do my best, I know I didn't push myself as far as I could go, and I know I didn't prepare myself as well as I could.

Big, big, big, big, big failures and obviously we have to keep moving, but obviously, something needs to be done about where I lack.

So where has this post ended up?

I've said hello, I've blabbed about some of the past year, I've left holes all over, I've scrapped about 500 words from the draft to try and keep it simple. And I'm starting to remember just how difficult blogging can be, how difficult making a succinct blog post can actually be. The intention setting, the editing, all of that.

And I'm realising, that this feels all much the same, in terms of blogging, I haven't really come anywhere, I've grown professionally though this feels all the same as it used to. It's difficult - and it seems I am really struggling as I don't take a second to declare intentions before I begin writing, I have them in me somewhere, and I just go.

In this process, having edited sporadically and deleted around 700 words from this draft, I'm realising I don't like appearing under an alias. I'm writing this as me and I want this to be as me. I have things to say, and while I'm scared to make more of myself public, it's the thing I'm scared of most, but it's also what I see to be an answer.

At the very least, I'm not happy with this tag, the alias is CarpetDuck, not Carpet.Duck - and I managed to have found my key to @CarpetDuck, so maybe I'll re-appear there - or maybe I'll go back to Medium - I DON'T KNOW - I like all the choice, but it also makes things really difficult.

All of this to say..

All of this to say hello, I'm alive, I left not because of Steemit but because I'm bad at this.

How are you?

Care to share something that's happened in the last year?

Where are you at? How is 2019 for you?

Is it just me, or did the last year seriously zoom by?

Thanks for taking the time :)