Five hundred posts. It took me fifteen and a half years with breaks here and there to reach the five hundredth post on this blog, which is hard to believe in so many ways. It began the month I started at LIB, and ran through the Great Recession, Hurricane Sandy, the pandemic, the end of my career at LIB, and now the start of working at SIB. More than the national or international events, however, this has chronicled some of the most personally tumultuous years of my life and that means more to me than writing about world events. There are far better journalists and pundits who can analyze and opine on those whereas I am the only one who can know what is going through my head, even though that's often not well defined either, lol. I can look back on what I've written and have a window into that time and place.

I start my job with SIB on March 7th and will take it as a new chapter. The war on Ukraine rages on but for the purposes of this blog all I can do is send wishes for it to end soon and with some victory against Russia. Here and now I have to focus on myself and my small world, on the things that I can change to help me accept my past mistakes and prevent similar ones in the future. Do not fall into the same traps. Things can be different.

Maybe I will look back on the next five hundred posts and see a stronger, more balanced self. No one knows what the future brings, but I know to hold on tight because it can be a hell of a ride.