Happy Birthday to meeeeee - 1 year of Steemit.

Time flies, huh?

I just realized ( thanks to a bot, of course, it's steemit!!) that there have been one year since I first joined Steemit. ONE YEAR!

Of course, it's a good opportunity to take a little trip down the memory lane.
I remember when I signed up, I had no clue what I was getting myself into or that my life will be forever changed. I was not in "Kansas" anymore, fellas! But, for my first post I had no clue about that...I just heard that it's a site that rewards content. Why not give it a try?

It was, I think, a Saturday night and I was just waiting for my Uber to go to a party. I was feeling very down and depressed. A lot of things in my life did not work.I entered "steemit.com" and checked the tranding page. I saw a lot of post with some $$ amount next to them. "Hmm, this looks promising!" I said to myself. I don't have a photo of the page but "wayback machine" has one for the 4th of July :)
I want to share this with you because if you are new you can not imagine how different steemit was back then, with very few users. I can not even imagine myself how Steemt was prior to 4th of July, the day the payouts came alive. You might not know that too, but for a few months, all the money paid for posts were " a promise" for when the blockchain actually went live: 4th of July.

It's funny to see who was already on Steemit and what kind of posts trended back then.
Anyway, I signed in, really with no expectations though but I guess, a little part of me, hoped this will be something good.
The next day, my post made some money. I wrote another one. and another one. and....here I am , 3500 posts later :)

It has been a wild journey with ups and downs. I have experienced the wonderful crazy addiction of Steemit, the first few months were on a "high" as strong as any other drug. A high that fueled my creativity to new heights and put a fire under my ass. I wrote more in the first 2 mo[nths of Steemit than maybe my entire life.

Mistakes were made. And hopefully some lessons learned.

I made a ton of friends. You know how people say: this community has given me so much blabla bla, and you just roll your eyes like "sureeee". Damn, it's time for me to say the same stuff. I made a few friends that I now see as life-long or anyway, with a lot of potential for life-long friendshipness. What's more, my interest in crypto has brought me in touch with some people that I never would have been friends with otherwise. It's crazy but true. In fact, if I was lucky to join Steemit, I was DOUBLE lucky to join the Steemit SLACK before it closed down ( yes, Steemit used to have a slack! )

I went to Steemfest. I helped @roeland as part of @firepower's team. I hope to do this again this year. That has been a blast for me as I got to meet in real life a few of these people I've been following and interacting with since the beginning.

I think I grew a lot in this year, from my early shy attempts at writing to my current form, which is hopefully, not my FINAL form as I feel I have a lot to learn and give :to steemit, to the world, to myself.
Looking on my blog I see a lot of past posts that are more or less lost forever in the forest of time but that still excite me to re-read. I'm planning, with your permission, to repost a few gems in the coming weeks. I think they are worth to see the day of the light again :)

What's the plan for now on?
As always, be active, keep posting, meeting new people as possible and generally try to stay connected to this world. I believe in crypto, in Steemit and in what we can achieve.

Thank you for being part of my journey!
STEEM ON!*