It’s November, one of the darkest months where I live; the days are short and it tends to rain a lot.  The light seems to get sucked right out of the air down into the wet, black asphalt of the streets and sidewalks, and the lack of light can sometimes really get to me.

But November is also a bright month for me in many ways. It is the birthday month of a person who is very special to me, and it marks the anniversary of my blog. It was in November four years ago that I posted my very first blog post. Can you believe it? This is The Opting Out Blog’s fourth anniversary! Time sure flies, whether or not you’re having fun.

I really feel like I’ve come a long way in four years. When I started blogging, I had just received my PhD, and like now I thought, wow, I really have come a long way. I had learned so much while working on my PhD. Whole new worlds had opened up to me, which, I might add, doesn’t make life easier or less complicated, but it sure makes life interesting. Realizing that issues and situations that have seemed black and white and pretty much straight forward before, in reality are much more complex and problematic with no easy answers, can be troubling. It means that you can no longer shrug your shoulders and comfort yourself by saying that’s just the way things are, because it isn’t that simple. A friend and colleague of mine once likened it to swallowing the red pill, and I have to say, that’s exactly how it feels sometimes.

That’s the thing with knowledge, the more you know, the more you realize that you don’t know. The more you know, the harder it is to find easy answers. Not a comforting thought, I might add, in these times of global upheaval and destructive politics that we’re seeing in many places.

But just like four years ago, I again feel that I have come a long way. I remember the first time I posted a post on my blog. Being quite a private person, the thought of writing a text and making it visible to the world was literally terrifying. I wrote a draft of my first post, showed to my husband, and we both agreed that it needed rewriting. I rewrote it and showed it to him again and this time he liked it so with minor edits I posted it. I almost hyperventilated as I pressed the ‘publish’ button, but it got a lot of positive responses, especially from my own network of friends, colleagues and acquaintances, for which I am forever grateful. The following week I wrote the next post and showed it to my husband again. He read it and liked it but carefully said that if I was going to start blogging a lot I needed to be able to write posts without him checking everything first. The following week I posted my third post without anyone checking it and although I broke out in a sweat again, I didn’t die and I started to trust my judgement. What I did though in the very beginning, was imagine my sister – who is no nonsense and whose opinion I really value – reading it and if she (in my mind) bought it I would post it.

So there I was, blogging every week. The response I got was tremendous, but I was no blogger. I just couldn’t identify. Blogging for me was something completely different and what I was doing was rather publishing a weekly column on topics related to my research. I think it must have taken about a year before I finally looked myself in the mirror and admitted that yes, I was a blogger. I think by now I’ve even added it to my Twitter profile, so you can see, I have really come a long way!

Four years later, whether or not I’m a blogger doesn’t take up a lot of mental space anymore. What I do think about, however, is what I want to do with my blog. I’m not a believer in changing things just for the sake of it. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right? But I’ve had ups and downs with my blog and have noticed that as I’ve evolved and grown into the person I am today; my blog has evolved with me. For a while I posted less frequently. It coincided with a time when I was trying to figure out what I really wanted, where my opting out and in journey would take me next. Now I’m posting more regularly again, and I’ve noticed that my writing has taken a more personal turn – something that would have terrified and horrified me four years ago!

But I’m just going to go with it and see where it takes me. I don’t want to overanalyze my writing and let this blog continue being an outlet for me where I can write on my own terms and not take into account editors, reviewers, journals or publishers. Also, writing blog posts often helps me figure out where I stand regarding both my own life and happenings on a larger scale.

What I’m trying to say is thank you for being there for me during these past four years. I value all the comments and responses I get – more that you know!