This is my 6,000th post.

Almost 1.5 million words and counting.

It’s a bit bonkers really. It’s one thing to consider the time that has passed since I posted my first ever blog post, but quite another to look at the build up stats surrounding this odd little place.

Yes I know, if you do something for so long the numbers will add up, but 1.5 million words is a LOT. Like, loads. And I still can’t stop spewing them out and publishing them.

It’s been a lifetime (25 years) since I started this blog and I’ve maintained it throughout, reflecting on myself as I journey through life, my work, my hobbies, my friends, my emotions, and my family (then and now).

There is, presumably, about the same number of years ahead of me; so many more words, topics, thoughts and dreams to capture and share to the 6 of you who still occasionally drop by.

But it’s never been about the numbers.

I’ve watched on as other bloggers – those who focused on a topic or two, who wrote better, were funnier, smarter and all the other comparisons I could come up with – roared on to success, to book deals, TV shows and wider acclaim, and whilst I admired them, and liked them as people as I was lucky enough to meet a couple of them over the years, it was no mystery to me why my little blog didn’t reach those heights, quite simply I wasn’t aiming for them.

I won’t go back over why I started blogging, nor why I continue to do so, but these little milestones are now things I take some pride in. Yes, it’s just a silly little blog, which means a lot to me but very little to others, but it’s something I’ve stuck with and whilst I’m continually tinkering with the design, the platform, the machinations behind the blog, it’s still the joy of writing and the ACT of writing down my thoughts that I enjoy. Even the smallest part of the process, watching words appear on a screen as I move my fingers across the keyboard, remains a magical thing. Yes, I’m THAT old. And yes, the publishing of said words for the entire internet to read is part of it too. Vanity and all that.

Threads recently had a couple of instances of ‘how old are you in internet terms’ posts, and all I can think back to is hand-coding HTML to appear as black text, on a grey screen. And two weeks later being able to add a background colour and an image. It was late 1997 if you are wondering. I spent some time playing with HTML creating my own start pages, first a bulleted list, then in a table, then with Frames, then with CSS… and then it all became easier with bookmarks and auto-complete and so many things we take for granted now, you know, like Google… in the midst of all that I wrote I was playing with building a website and needed some content so I wrote Sunglasses. The rest is, literally, history.

So here I am, 6,000 posts in and I’ve learned so much it’s hard to even fathom where to start. I am not the person I was when I started this blog, I’m into my third and final life stage, and whilst I remain Happily Imperfect, I still can’t seem to kick this silly little habit I’ve had for over 25 years now.