We’ve never done anything to celebrate any of Yow Yow’s birthday in the past other than write a post about it, but 7 years of me committing to something deserved a celebration. This year we have a balloon. Next year, maybe we’ll get a cake!
We started this post on a plane leaving Seattle coming back to the Bay Area after the holidays and it was written mostly on my phone in the notes app. I remembered thinking that 7 years was a long time for a hobby. The last time I had this kind of serious commitment was when I collected my Polly Pockets for 7 years. This feels more productive than that. Embarrassingly enough, as I was writing this I started getting a little emotional. (luckily no tears!)
Yow Yow! is now as old as a child entering the 2nd grade though for the longest time, Veronica and I used to say that I raised a toddler in the form of a blog. We’re finally past that! Yow Yow! was an unplanned project though. It was never meant to be a hobby, but a side project and a little bit of a time waster for my classmates at school with me. It’s amazing that we’ve kept this going for as long as we have and I’m even more grateful that my friends continued to pass it along within their networks making Yow Yow! what it is today. We’ve really grown up with this and if you’ve been here for awhile, then you know that the archives from 2009-2012 are sometimes a little bit like reading the diary of an adult teenager. I dare you to go back and look.
It sounds weird to say this and I’ve been thinking for weeks about how best to write this, but… Yow Yow! is the truest and most honest form of my identity. I’ve tried a lot of different things in life and had other interests, but this is special. When I can’t feel like myself in person for whatever reason, I can through this outlet. When I’m writing on Yow Yow! I’m happy and I’m excited to share things that I hope people will be just as excited to read as I am to write about it. At the same time, there’s a lot of vulnerability that comes with this; my life and this blog aren’t always filled with joy. It’s important for me to capture those moments too. After 7 years, I’m incredibly proud of all that we’ve accomplished. We’ve met and worked with such amazing individuals. I’ve allowed other people to write their own thoughts on here too! Yow Yow! will probably never have my full and undivided attention because I like having a job, but even though we’ve showed signs of slowing down, Yow Yow! still has a heartbeat in it.
The list of thank you’s after 7 years is long. Thank you to the friends and family that have stayed by our side, shared it with their friends and even passed along little bits and pieces that they thought I would enjoy writing about. While I’m doing all of this on my own from the time I get home after a day of work until I fall asleep, I’ve never felt alone in this process and if I did, it’d be much easier to say goodbye to it. Here’s to 2016 – our 7th year, more adventures, more fun, more projects, and of course more wedding talk!
