When I started this blog all those years ago, I was still learning how to have confidence in sharing my thoughts and opinions. I had an entry level Nikon SLR, a 6 year old MacBook Pro, and some delusions that someone would read my writing and say, “Damn, she’s brilliant!”

In my early childhood, we were pretty poor, so my introduction into media was an old ass knob and tube TV, a VCR that I am surprised connected to it, and a handful of video tapes — mostly musicals that I think my grandpa bought from Reader’s Digest. We didn’t have cable, so I watched a lot of PBS (a big middle finger to anyone who wants to defund them). Apart from the basic broadcasting channels, my only other source of entertainment (not provided by a big sister or other family member) was… books!

I learned to love books at an early age for many reasons. First, there were always lots of different books around in the house. From an outdated and incomplete encyclopedia to random textbooks to science fiction and probably some smut (I was like 3, who knows if there actually was smut back then, but eventually I can say, without a doubt, that there was smut in my house). Second, my paternal grandmother was a librarian (more on her one day), who taught all her children to love books. My dad would tell me about how she’d take him to work and he’d “run” wild in there– which probably meant he found books he liked and parked his ass in a corner undisturbed for hours. And lastly, the library was walking distance from the first house where we lived.

Reading has always been a safe haven for me. I learned so much from what I read, even when it was fiction. It was my escape from a reality that could be very scary at times. It gave me a freedom that I didn’t have at home. Enjoying stories so much made me want to create and share stories of my own. It’s always been a dream of mine to be a published author.

One thing I didn’t really learn until my 20s was that dreams stay in your head unless you have the courage to bring them into reality. I’m sure everyone knows that, but it didn’t really hit me until I realized how much of a chicken I was when it came to writing. I was raised a chicken (it sounds nicer than coward)– basically taught to fear anything that wasn’t “safe.” And add in my trauma-based people pleasing tendencies, the fear of upsetting or offending some random stranger gave me a weird anxiety that I didn’t like.

But as I worked on my recovery, I learned how to find my voice and have the courage to share more than short blurbs on social media. I NEEDED people to read my stuff and I didn’t care if they didn’t like it. I figured starting with a blog based on the things I did to help myself recover from my mental illness would keep me motivated to write what I really wanted, which still is fiction novels. And so theMEESH.com was born.

I had such a blast when I’d make the content for my entries, especially with my mishaps in the kitchen, but when it came to putting it onto the blog, my poor computer was just not in the best state. It was dying. Physically. Like me, the brain worked fine, but the working parts were falling apart. The keyboard was missing keys, the bezel was cracked, and it hadn’t had a battery for a while at that point. The keyboard alone made it such a hassle to type my thoughts.

Eventually my frustrations with it grew and as I got better mentally, my desire to take on more responsibilities grew too. Unfortunately that made me less motivated to work on my writing, using the lack of a decent laptop and having less time became my excuses.

Throughout the years, I attempted to get back into it with an iPad, but for some reason, it just wasn’t the same. I know that there are lots of people who are able to live their digital lives without a laptop/computer, but alas, I just am not one of them. I couldn’t make it work, so I just let writing fall down my list of goals. I kept paying for the services though, in hopes that I would find that inspiration and drive to write consistently again.

Time moved on and as my last entry from 2021 said… that year sucked. Not just because of my suicide attempt, but because I lost the most important person in my life. What I meant to share in Part 2 was that my dad passed away at the end of 2021. And since then, I’ve been questioning everything. I’ve been questioning my core beliefs, my abilities, my desire for recovery. It’s really hard to follow through on anything with a “why bother” mentality. And yet, I still tried. I trudged forward, trying to figure out what was life after dad.

At the end of 2022, I got my first full time job since 2009 and I thought I was taking the right steps to one of my big goals: FULL INDEPENDENCE. And things were okay and then they got bad, and then they got worse, until I had to give myself an ultimatum. Continue the way things have been for 15 years – with my wellness teetering off the edge of an abyss that always leads to a 51/50 – or take a chance and see if I can make the right choices on my own and hope that the chronic suicidal ideation stays in the far reaches of my brain.

What the hell does any of that have to do with blogging and a shitty 2007 MacBook Pro? Well, thanks to my full time employment (and a little help from AfterPay), I was finally able to get a new MacBook Air in January of this year! After all this time, I can now start doing things I used to love to do on a laptop. Could I have purchased a PC and got the ball rolling on this faster? Maybe. All I know is that my aversion to going back to PC at home was so strong that I just couldn’t bring myself to buy one.

I now have the main tool I claimed to need for so long, so there really isn’t any excuse to not write. I just have to battle being overwhelmed by the transition period I’m in, the possibility of dealing with scumbag trolls on more sensitive topics, and nefarious companies making money from ripping my fiction from wherever I decide to post them, when I get to that point.

Ah well. All I really can do is keep going and hope for the best.