I started my first tumblr blog, lovelacelove, in the spring of my sophomore year of high school after a close friend of mine had shown tumblr to my twin sister. Because Jessie made a blog, I had to then, too. Before tumblr, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on the internet as I preferred the refuge of fiction, but over that summer I increasingly became addicted to tumblr. Most of my posts were reblogs from the fandoms of my favorite books and pictures and videos from my favorite bands. By the next spring, my interests changed and I wanted to post my own content, so I began with my own bad poetry. The kinds of blogs that I followed changed, as well, and I started following blogs that brought me to eventually study women’s, gender, and sexuality studies in college. Around this time, I started interacting with a few tumblr bloggers who I still love, though I no longer interact with any of them anymore, with the exception of a couple, including one who became my best friend. But, by the end of summer, I gradually started to disappear from tumblr until I eventually disappeared completely.
When I left home for college, I tried to start over on tumblr. I wrote a handful of posts, but in the end I disappeared just the same as I had before. I realized that I hadn’t left because I was bored of tumblr, I left because I became afraid of tumblr. Well, not tumblr itself, but the people on it. My confidence had sunk so low, the idea of someone knowing that I exist was, and is, the most terrifying thing. But I did, and I do, want people to know that I exist.
Since my last attempt, I’ve transferred schools hoping that a better school and change of atmosphere would restore some of what I had lost. At least enough to return to tumblr. But that hasn’t happened yet. I’m still afraid of anyone knowing I exist just as much as I was last year. Reblogging anything more than a pretty picture of a flower with my blog’s theme blank still makes my heart race.
But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try anyways. So tonight, I’m trying. I’ve reopened my old blog so you can actually see it and I’ve made a new blog, because I realized that repeatedly trying on the same blog, and even the same url, that I created when I was 16 years old could be part of the problem. I’m a different person now and today I left my teenage years, so it makes sense to leave my teenage blog. And I’m telling anyone who reads this that I’m afraid of you reading it. But you’re reading it now and you either like it, don’t care about it, or you hate it. And unless you like it, I can’t think of a single reason why I should care what you think of it and me.
In a month I could disappear from tumblr again. Or flowers might be the only thing I’m capable of reblogging. But why not try if I want to.
stormborns
areudirty
origamiaround
gummygunk
kaledo-art
romaincrisis
