There's something exciting about being a part of something new and innovative. Where your audience is organic, authentic, and adventurous to explore the unknown. Many of us have personal stories to be able to recount the time when they first discovered Myspace/Facebook/Instagram/etc. I wanted to share my story of how I stumbled upon Steemit.

I grew up in a household of 2 older brothers. We share a strong brotherly connection through reminiscing on old episodes of The Simpsons and insides jokes through our observations of the world. I knew I was different from both of them early on when I realized I talked a lot more than they did, ever. I channeled part of this energy into AOL Instant Message AKA AIM. Okay, I lied, AIM was like crack to me back in the day. Whenever I hear the notification sound of a new message, I am brought back to the days when I shared a room and a computer with my older brother - managing 1-8 different chat windows, shouting across the hall to my mom whenever she picked up the phone in confusion because all she heard was static. 

"MOM! I'M ON THE INTERNET RIGHT NOW. HOLD ON, OKAY?!"

Another part of my energy to want to talk was channeled into blogging. I actually met my first serious girlfriend through xanga. Still to this day, I have no idea why she reached out to me or what she saw in me because I didn't have any super cool stories to tell, and she was way out of my league. I just wrote about my normal boring day. It went something like this, "todai waz borin cuz I juss went to skoo and..." I have to stop writing like that because I'm afraid it'll give me cancer. 

I rode the wave of xanga until it eventually fizzled out, and jumped ship to wordpress. At that point of my life, I reduced the amount of blogging I did because I was able to talk to my girlfriend instead. We talked daily on the phone and I was able to talk about my day to her so I got my fix. I went through many heartbreaks and "blogged" to whatever girlfriend I had at that moment. 

Many years later, I find myself reflecting often about my life. I'm turning 30 years old this May and many of my memories are contained with those wonderful women I had many long phone conversations with. I've been wanting to write again, but timing was always an excuse. 

Back in December 2017, I was catching up with a good friend of mine over lunch. I haven't seen him on a consistent basis for over 2 years because I moved to San Diego for school. He didn't seem as alive with life as I once remembered him for until the conversation shifted to crytocurrency. His eyes lit up and he stopped eating - that's when I knew I was going to get an ear beating. The only reason why I didn't tell him to shut up was because I could actually feel his passion. He talked in great lengths painting a convincing story about how he was going to get rich and he didn't want me to miss out. I'm in the camp of, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

At one point, he snapped out of his trace-like state and started noticing that I was over it. He made one last Hail Mary effort to reel me in by mentioning Steemit. "You know there's a cryptocurrency that was created for people who blog?" Suddenly, I was asking him to keep talking. 

3 months later, and here we are. I wanted to make my first post without getting too engulfed of the current culture of Steemit because I wanted to express myself honestly without any influences. Maybe this might not be the write place where I do what I do, but at least I gave it a shot. 

Thanks for reading!