Happy blogiversary!

Exactly a year ago, I launched the blog on a whim with this post, never thinking I would keep up with it anywhere near this long. I've started countless journals that peter out after only a few pages filled with self-conscious penmanship, with the result that the past year of my life since I started this blog is documented far better than any previous. This might be part of the reason it seems like 8/22/07–8/22/08 has been the most important year of my life thus far.

Before writing this post I read through my archives, and I was struck by how much I have, for lack of a better term, grown up this year. Since I started the blog, I have ended a marriage, strengthened friendships, and, much to my surprise, fallen in love again. I have focused my energy on discovering what makes me happy and taken steps to bring more happiness into my life. I have also spent hours weeping, eaten a ridiculous amount of cheese, and used the f-word in front of my mother, all of which have turned out to be just exactly what was needed at the time. This year feels like it has also been a turning point of sorts in my career; in the past week alone I have been offered a job I didn't apply for and interviewed for a job that begins over a year from now.

Through it all, I have shared my life with you here. The Wise Soprano asked me once whether I would write the blog if nobody was reading it, and my answer to her was an unwavering no. The fact that people read (and that I am not even a little bit anonymous) limits me in certain ways, but I think that the need to put my experiences through a public filter actually forces me to think them through and interpret them in a way that I wouldn't have to in a private journal, and that has been invaluable to me. Being a blogger is a little bit like being a photographer; the more you look through that tiny lens, the more you see everything around in the context of a picture. When I view my life now I am more likely to see parallels in seemingly unrelated anecdotes, more inclined to question my reactions to events, and often inspired to get out and do something interesting, if only to get a good subject for a blog post.

Which is all a very long-winded way of saying, thanks for reading. I think Little Ms. Bossy will stick around for another year. I hope you will, too.

Coming (relatively) soon: The Bossy Activity Guide for the Unemployed, Insights into the Bossy Netflix Queue, A Paean to the Bossy Cat, and Little Ms. Bossy Starts a Club