Oh gosh, my Steembirthday was last week! A year addicted to Steem! It's kinda wierd to think of me a year ago, super nervous about my introduce yourself post, posted a couple of weeks after I signed up. AW, look how young-in-the-steemwheel I am! Making sure I'm backlit so no one really sees me. Well, a year on and I think most of you know me pretty well, and some of you even follow me and comment on my posts and stuff, so cheers for that! Turns out I shouldn't have been so nervous after all.

5 DOWNERS

• Sometimes I spend hours and hours on a post and no one would read it. And the shitpost above you in the feed got a $80 dollar payout because they are cooler than you. This used to bother me. A lot. Now I don't care. It's just writing. No one has to read it. And sometimes it's just dumb luck - you post at the right time of day, or a whale reads it, or someone cool resteems you.
• Some twat downvoted my post. Trolls exist even on Steemit. Rattled me - but I let it go. Doesn't mean a thing in the grander scheme of things, and their downvote is as pathetic as they are. Saying that, I've accidentally hit the downvote button twice and had to explain myself. Sorry @surfermarly. How embarrassing. Flagwars and downvotes are for assholes. Unless you are a racist homophobe, in which case you deserve it. I think.
• The Hardfork meant we couldn't post for a week, and created some intense FUD - what a crazy week that was. Could we trust that STINC was making decisions in our best interests? Would we recover from a week without steeming? Turns out we did, and we all had a nice time. The RC credit thing has been a bummer, but we all just stepped in to help out, delegating and supporting new comers. Oh, that's an upper, isn't it?
• The crypto market crashed big time and with that, many good Steemians left the platform, disillusioned and unwilling to post if they weren't going to earn what they were earning when they first started. Come back! Please come back! We miss you! On the flipside, the people who did stick around are doing okay for themselves and will be in a good place when the market goes up again and everyone comes back. Yay.

10 UPPERS

• People should make effort to tell people they care about what they do. It really can make the difference to someone's day. This is what @llfarms did when I was feeling a bit despondent - she made sure she took the time to respond to my C.O.D (my comments of despair) with enough love to make me cry. And then she randomly delegated me 1000SP for the month one day, totally out of the blue, in recognition of my efforts on Steemit. It was the first big delegation I'd ever recieved and ironically I had left all my despair behind at that point, but boy it was a nice gift to recieved, and I upvoted like a mad woman that month to spread that love around.
• I made a lot of friends. Who would have thought I'd have friends in Spain, Texas, the Ozarks, Colorado, and all sorts of far away places within a year? Honestly - you all rock. You know who you are! I love you! You're welcome round for a cuppa at mine anytime, and you know that. Thanks for putting up with my craziness, my ups and downs and highs and lows. You have made my year really, really cool.
• I spoke on voice for the first time in a Discord radio show. The one time that I accidentally left my mike on @mrprofessor said "I can 'ear you tyyyyyypppppppppinnnngggg' and scared me so much that I slammed my laptop shut in horror. A few weeks later I actually spoke in a radio chat with Natural Medicine crew and it was SO.MUCH.FUN. Thanks @metametheus and @thetreeoflife for making me feel so comfortable. We spoke for two hours and I buzzed all weekend off the loveliness of that chat. I'm still terrified of voice though - have a show coming up with @pennsif soon and trying to psyche myself into NOT tripping over my words.
• I won 20 Steem randomly just for being in a chatroom - I think that was @llfarms again. In fact, I've won a few things, which is a real buzz. Plus, I've run a lot of competition on Steemit too and it feels good to reward people for their efforts!
• I won a short story competition for a horror story I wrote called 'Horses' - it was such a buzz. I also got a huge whale upvote for that - around 70 dollars at payout. Ah, those were the days. It was really cool to win that contest and inspired me to go in more.
• I was accepted into Tribe Steem Up, whose ethos matches my own. This blew me away, as there were some talented people in there and I felt quite humbled they'd let me in. I met some really nice crew in there that I admire to this day. I also absolutely loved being involved with @ecotrain, @freedomtribe and @earthtribe, meeting some like minded folk whose friendships I really value.
• I started Natural Medicine. What a awesome few months that's been! @naturalmedicine promotes natural healing wisdoms from herbalism to yoga to mushrooms to - well, anything really! - on the Steem blockchain and I'm super proud for hanging in there during the slump. We've got an awesome core team who are dedicated and bloody lovely, and I've learnt a lot! Man, it's gonna be busy when the bulls start a-runnin'!
• Homesteaders CoOp started up, and I got involved, and I'm so glad I did. It feels great to help support an ethical marketplace run by steem! Such a beautiful vision, and so many great people offering products and services.
• I fine tuned my writing skills. I love writing. It's meditative and helps me work through shit. It's a creative outlet too. I think I've got a little better at it, and it's been nice to have an audience. Thanks for reading!!
• I have learnt ALOT! I've learnt so much from reading your posts, about all kinds of things from gardening to what it might be like to live in Belize, Costa Rica or Nicaragua. I've learnt more about America than I ever have before, and hey, turns out Americans are pretty cool people. My geography has improved - I now know the difference between the east and west coast of the States. I met a lot of people in India too. And if I don't know something, all I have to do is ask and a Steemian will answer. You guys beat Google, hands down.

You know, I could probably think of twenty uppers, but I think that's enough to say both to myself and to Steemians in general that this place is worth all our efforts. I'm lucky that I'm in a position to not desperately need steem to survive, so the upvotes aren't as important to me as the friendships and other benefits for being on this platform. Perhaps that's why it's been easier for me to stick around. I've also worked out a steem life balance - I don't post every day like I used to and I'm okay with that too. Steem free days also are good for me - it's nice to step away from the screen for a bit. I know it's not going anywhere, and it'll be here and smiling when I get back.

Want some free steem?

I've set a 10 Steem Bounty on this post. This means that if you write a good comment, I'll upvote it and you'll win part of that bounty on post payout.

To join in the party, tell me one downer and two uppers about your experiences on Steemit!

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@naturalmedicine II Discord Invite II #naturalmedicine