It’s been seven years now since I started this blog. And also that long since I cut off contact with my abusive ex.* (Not really getting into it in this post, though.)

These facts are not unrelated.

I threw this together pretty hastily, just as a place for me to rant where no one else would have to listen—or be able to connect the dots about who I even am. At the time, I felt like I was sifting through a dense gray fog, trying to catch barely-tethered thoughts before they completely disappeared into the wind. (This song is a very good approximation of that feeling.)

When I started this blog, I felt somewhat alienated from the ace community. I was frequently subjected to gatekeeping (which still happens today, but less). My experiences didn’t really fit anywhere. I didn’t expect them to resonate with anyone.

But, oddly enough, right from the very start I already had at least four readers. And that number steadily grew. I found a source of community-based intimacy. That was incredibly important for my recovery. And still is. So thank you, everyone, for reading and standing by me. It really makes a huge difference.

Obviously, this space has not always been safe for me to be in. Particularly in 2012, after the House episode aired and things got weird in my personal life with three different people (including my House-wannabe ex apologizing, of all things, in the vaguest way possible), and then after I published this thing there was waaaaaaaaay more attention here than I wanted. A few months ago that was described as “one of” my most popular posts which… no. Ha. It’s the most popular, by a very large margin.

I never did report the actual numbers for that post though, so I think I’m the only one who had any idea. It drives pretty close to half of the overall current traffic of this blog, averaging 100ish views per day (since the start of 2015). To date, it’s had 95,597 95,603 views total—my second-most viewed ever has only had 16,416 total and that’s with a four-year head start. My blog’s record high is 1,998 views in a single day on April 8th, 2012. That month had 23,096 views total, averaging 770 views/day. The traffic didn’t go back to some semblance of where it had been previously for months. To give you a comparison, in 2011 my yearly average views/day was 94. In 2012, it was 258. That was too much for my anxiety to handle. There have been quite a few people who tried to harass me in the comments for posting it, because (surprise, surprise!) it tends to attract jerks who think it’s “selfish” for ace people to not give them sex. It also caused quite a bit of misunderstanding within the community primarily because of the triggering title—which was necessary to get the attention of its intended audience. More information on that and on how I intend to revise that post here. Still looking for more people willing to write supplementary posts.

For now though, I’m going to be too busy with Resources for Ace Survivors, which I had wanted to get up by last week. But… stressful life complications happened. Frustrating.

I know some of you are waiting on an email/reply from me, and rest assured that I haven’t forgotten you. It’s just that everything that is not time-sensitive has had to be postponed. Sorry! I’ll get back to you when I can manage.

I’m just tired right now. The past week has been especially difficult, perhaps because of the time of year. I’ve been at a point in my recovery where I’m mostly functional most of the time, so now I expect to be more productive. And then after a week of setbacks, and these triggers hitting me hard I’m suddenly not.

It’s been nice to come back to the community though, now that it’s safe enough again. You guys have kept me going. Since coming back, I’ve shared a bunch of way more personal posts that I would never have been able to publish before. And the whole community has made a LOT of progress since then! The Invisible Orientation was published (and is winning a bunch of awards lately! yay!), then this panel happened (which was way nerve-wracking but worth it—so thanks for organizing that, Siggy!), Asexual Outreach became the first nonprofit, and last but obviously not least, a bunch of us have banded together to make the RFAS website happen. It’s truly impressive. And more great things are on the horizon.

Thank you all for being so awesome. Take care of yourselves, all right?

* Ex-????? explicitly not romantic; I refused to consider that as an option since we were obviously incompatible. It was nevertheless intense in such a way that there isn’t an appropriate label to describe it.