Five Years Later…ater…ater…

Hey everybody,

I hope the week has treated you well. A couple days ago as I was fending off death, AKA “the man flu”, I received an out of the blue notification. When I took a quick peek, it was a little icon like the picture above. It was to remind me of quite the surprising achievement. Now that I am fully recovered, I thought I would use this opportunity to acknowledge it. (cough, cough) 😉

It blows me away that it’s been five whole years already since Earth to Ash became a thing. As quick as that, poof. Where does the time go? To think, the first site address was wwwdarealashcom, and I believe that’s what I started calling my blog from the very beginning. Yes, it was DaRealAsh, which was my horrible attempt at a quick off the top of my head name to get the site up and running. Really, it was supposed to be “The Real Ash”. But, because I couldn’t secure the proper domain name, I had to stick with what was available. So, wwwdarealashcom it was.

Hey, I just wanted to start writing. It took me long enough during those days to debate even if I should start a blog, let alone what I should call it. I figured at some point a name would potentially come to me. Besides, I was more concerned with posting good content and entries that were worthy of a click. Oh my God, I still remember the internal struggles I would have with hitting the publish button. Should I? Nah…this post sucks. Maybe? Yes, do it Ash. No wait!! All the time with the back and forth, it used to drive me nuts.

Then, slowly but surely, as time went on, I became more and more confident and my apprehensiveness started to go away. I began to no longer care and simply went live with what I had to offer the world of the internet. Good or bad. When I look back on it now, my readers were a huge part of getting me through those early woes. That’s definitely were I gained the majority of my confidence. The more traction I was gaining with likes, follows, and comments, the more I wanted to keep on going. It was all a part of the process I suppose. My journey had to start somewhere right? Anyway, five years in…it’s been quite the venture. Some peaks and valleys, but overall a wonderful experience.

OK, swinging back around to the name. The one thing I do recall is having a bunch of ideas, I also remember that none of those ideas were really sticking to me. From time to time, I would have these internal debates as to the name and even with the direction I wanted to take with the blog. I was green as green could be when it came to blogging. Although, almost every day it felt like I was learning something new. It was fun. I’d find myself in these endless wormholes discovering the how-to’s of blogging. Something I still to to this day. I also found reading other sites that I have grown to enjoy very helpful too. All of that was great, but, I still needed a name. Then, with one quick eureka telephone call to my best friend Danny, who is a graphic designer and works in advertising…“Earth to Ash“ was born. This was how the call went, no joke:

Danny: Hello?
Ash: Danny? Hey, listen. I’m trying to come up with a new name for my website.
Danny: What’s it about?
Ash: You know, just an anything blog, I’m really not sure yet. But, I want to basically post general entries for now about things that I’m in to, stuff that I do, and my thoughts on certain things that I find interesting. I’m still working that stuff out.
Danny: How about Earth to Ash?
Ash: Holy sh*t!!! That’s perfect, thanks man…talk to you later on the week.
Danny: K, bud…laters.

And, there you have it. It was literally that quick and easy. I was blown away with how almost instantaneously it resonated with me. It just felt perfect in my head. Thanks, to Danny, and thanks to our telekinetic brothers from other mothers personalities. We are always on the same wave-length when it comes to our imagination, wit, and sense of humour. It only made sense that together we would come up with something, I just didn’t think it would be that fast. We both get each other, and this was another example. It’s funny, if you were in the same room as us, you’d think we were both from a different planet with what we get on with. Age is really not a factor when we are around each other as most of the time we’re just completely foolish and goofing off. In this case though, that kind of friendship wound up giving me what I think is the perfect description of what Earth to Ash means to me and I hope means for you as well. If at least, it gave me a pretty cool background story to share with you folks.

I’m glad WordPress sends out these little achievements. It gave me a chance in retrospect to take a second and see how far I’ve really come with this adventure. Fellow bloggers, we have all started our blogs for one reason or another. We all have our stories to tell and it’s really cool to be a part of something like that. It makes me happy that I decided to start a blog and it makes even more me happy that I still have loads of room to still grow. These blogs of ours are our own little piece of the world. A place where we can express ourselves and no longer have to suppress the creativity that’s buried inside each and everyone of us. You know, my focus way back then, and thinking on the spot, it’s actually how I still feel about it today. It’s kind of my mantra when it comes to writing. Which is that I just want to fit into a world that loves and embraces bloggers of every genre. Everybody deserves a platform like this, a voice, and I think the world is better off hearing what we have to say. Seeing what we have to share. I try my best to remind people of that as much as possible. Whether it’s my friends, my family, my coworkers, and certainly, my fellow bloggers. There is potential in all of us, we just need to tap into it and let what’s deep down inside of us out. In whatever creative way you see fit, just keep going.

Right now, I’m five awesome years in, and I’m excited for where I’ll be in another five years from now. Will I be writing? – I will. Will I be blogging? – I certainly hope so. Like my about page says and seems fitting for such an occasion: I don’t claim to be a great writer, but I am enjoying the journey of becoming one.

Thanks peeps for popping by as always, and if I can leave you with just a couple last points to send you on your way. Never stop writing, never stop blogging, never stop creating, and most importantly, never stop being you!!!

Until…