Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!! This month, for the Diabetes Social Media Advocacy Blog Carnival, the folks at DSMA have given us this prompt:

Write a Valentine to your readers, commenters and lurkers!!

Awww, what a perfect prompt for today!

Writing a Valentine to my readers is so easy to me. I love each and every one of you, even the ones who I have never met or never talked to. When I started participating in the blogging community, I didn’t really know what to expect. I hadn’t really spent much time reading blogs before I started my own. I had a Livejournal throughout college (which is now fully deactivated so don’t even try to find it), but it was only read by people I already knew. Then I started writing a “diary” of sorts for a diabetes website, but I decided I wanted more editorial control over what I was writing. I thought a “real blog” would be the best way to do that!

Between Livejournal and now, I’ve been writing about my life online for about 10 years. I can’t think of many things that I’ve been doing for that long! Although many people have come and gone during that time (sniff sniff), I am overjoyed by how many wonderful people have come into my life, how many people have changed my life because of blogging. I’ve been fortunate that blogging has impacted my career in many ways, but it’s also impacted my personal growth as an individual. Whenever you are exposed to so many people of different backgrounds, beliefs and experiences, it’s not always going to be easy. I have been pushed, prodded, challenged, and criticized and all of those things have helped me become a stronger person, and more solid in my identity and what I believe in.

So many of my readers have now become good friends, and many more of them are people that I want to be good friends with! It can be a challenge to work in enough time into the day to connect with everyone. But it’s always worth it! I always appreciate the little tweets of support and encouragement, and it makes me feel like we’re part of this wonderful, albeit weird little town. A town fully of smart, interesting, funny and diverse people, the kind of people that you’d be lucky to find yourself a neighbor with. Meeting people IRL has also been so nice, and you can really tell when you’ve clicked with someone because the conversation transfers from online to offline like you’ve been doing this your whole life. Eventually you realize that you no longer have online and offline friends. You just have friends!

My blog somewhat straddles two different towns, actually. I have my Diabetes World and my Twentysomething World. Some people also crossover, and some people don’t. I appreciate that my readers let me indulge in both of those worlds. I love that my Twentysomething friends have been so open to hearing about diabetes, even letting me go on a mini blog tour last November for National Diabetes Awareness Month. I love that my Diabetes friends listen to my tangents on life in New York, home decor and fitness, and whatever else pops into my mind.

Although I’ve always pretty much written about my whole life, all-encompassing, it has always been in the back of my mind that I needed to have a niche. Am I a diabetes blogger? A twentysomething blogger? A healthy living blogger? Who knows? And most importantly: who cares?! I finally feel fully embraced as a whole person, and that I don’t need to hide any part of who I am or what I find interesting. And that I think is what makes someone a real friend.

So thanks. Love you bunches.

This is my contribution to the February DSMA Blog Carnival.