Take the good, and the bad - Mandatory Christmas Post

Hello and happy holidays, fellow steemers, and steemians, and people who somehow wound up here by chance. After my not-so-chirpy holiday poem from some days ago, I decided I'd take a moment to look at the bright side and the silver linings of the year.

While it was certainly a challenging year, it was also the perfect moment for growth, and grow I did! Or, at least, I like to think so. After surviving countless life-threatening events (that I willingly put myself into), my psyche needed a time to adapt. I spent some really terrible months trying to cope with everything I felt, and to accept the new feelings coming in.

Luckily for me, Steemit was there to catch me and help me channel everything into my writing, my craft - what I want to become my craft. I know it sounds cheesy, and I know it's what we're socially and communally expected to say as members of the steemsphere, but trust me, I really do mean it.

I think people on the outside might not realize what it feels for someone in a country such as mine to not be limited by where you were born. There's a thing about poverty and misery that often escapes reflection: it doesn't let you out so easily. Try to open a PayPal account from Venezuela! Try to buy plane tickets from the inside! Hell, try to access basic services while you're at it - you'll see what I mean.

But here in Steemit, that doesn't matter. It's equal chance for equal effort, so to speak, and it even feels like a sort of karmic balance has come to my life. For that, however, I can't only thank the platform, but the people in it.

So, in no definite order:

Thanks to all the projects and initiatives aiming to form a community of like minded individuals with a craft or an interest in common. Thanks to absolutely everyone at @TheWritersBlock.

Thanks to Hive account@v4vapid for hosting the first contest I ever entered and Hive account@curie for supporting me time and time again through my beginnings.

Thanks to Hive account@jordan.lesich for also supporting me since the beginning and for that one edited story, and thanks to Hive account@gmuxx for hosting one of the most fun writing contests in this site. There's more fiction to come!

Thanks to Hive account@chrisroberts and Hive account@lymmerik, with whom one could much fun have, talking and writing in rhyme.

And finally, thanks to everyone who reads, comments and occasionally upvotes my posts. I always thought YouTubers were exaggerating when they say this about their audiences, but I do love every one of you.

Happy holidays and steem on!