Fifteen years. Holy crap. I had no grand plans when I started this blog, and it’s bonkers to me that this is still going. I had made a few personal websites prior to the creation of this blog, thankfully lost-to-time-one-page-fan-zine-type-things, but I started writing on the web in earnest in 2009 to give updates on my cancer treatment.
I found myself telling the same information over and over again to family and friends, and figured if I wrote it on the internet, people would read that and I wouldn’t have to repeat myself as much. Even then I knew folks didn’t generally read their acquaintances personal essays, but I figured people would feel sorry for the little cancer boy and take a peek.
They didn’t!
Or, I don’t think many people did. I didn’t keep analytics. The point is, I still had to repeat all the same information over and over.
But I got hooked on writing. Occasionally. There would be long pauses between updates, but when I did write, I found it really helpful and cathartic.
Over time, the blog changed a lot. The topics broadened out, from just cancer, to random things I was interested in, to coder shit once I joined the industry and that seemed important, to shorter posts, and finally to a bewildering mix.
I’ve changed blogging platforms several times, and domains at least three times, and designs a lot. I’ve been able to take my content with me wherever I’ve gone, a core blessing of the open web that was once table stakes and now seems astounding given the nature of corporate social media capture.
The very first iteration of this blog, the cheery cancer update site, is still online, still hosted on Wordpress, and still has the exact same theme as it started with. chrisdeluca.wordpress.com
I love writing, and I love having a little corner of the web to share it on. A digital place I own. Across all the changes in life and this blog, one thing has remained consistent. It is a home for my bullshit.
Thanks for reading.