I was trying to hold this off for maybe my seventh anniversary of being a mermaid or my fifth anniversary on this site, but I'd just like to come on out and give a huge thanks to this community now that I'm back here after being gone for a good long time. Plus, there are a lot of new merfolk in the community and I'd like for them to be able to see this.
I went back onto my profile page and looked back at all of the threads I've made since I joined. Whoo boy, big mistake. Gah, all I could do was cringe, cringe, cringe. I know I've said some embarrassing stuff, some stupid stuff, some things that really didn't need to be on this site and I wish they weren't. But then I took a step back and realized how long ago some of those were. What, was I twelve? Thirteen? I was just a child, saying some really childish things. Mixed in there though, I think I said some alright things and maybe even great things. But what my point is, I was just a little kid. Maybe I was just getting caught up in the drama as every preteen did (senior members, you remember those drama years I'm talking about). But I was growing - still am.
So I kept on looking through those threads, reading my mistakes and re-learning my lessons (every now and then, a couple of you mers really put me back in my place!), but I started to see a change. I found this thread. Some people commented on how I was a very mature, well spoken fifteen year old at the time. I'm seventeen now, and I continue to get compliments similar to that in the real world as well. I read over some newer threads and they started to sound like me. Well, that's because that's who I had become.
Now I just sound like I'm flattering myself, so what was the point of this post? I wanted to remind myself how much I've grown. I'm allowed to be embarrassed of my past self, because my past self was learning so much and I realize that this site was right there with me the entire time. My life was completely turned upside down in the past year and I thought to myself that I would never be a mermaid or a faerie again. I dug myself out of a very deep dark trench that I never thought I would get out of, but when I got to the surface, I remembered all of my passions again. Well here I am now. So as I continue to grow and push through my struggles and step into the big, scary, real world, I still have MerNetwork by my side. This community continues to document my growth and I think that is such a cool thing. Embarrassing as hell, but still very cool.
I know I've made posts like this before, and I probably won't stop. I just never want to forget how much this community and this passion has shaped my life. At times this website has felt like more of a home than any place else. I used to be uneasy about all of the new mers coming into the community, but not anymore. To all of you new merfolk - especially the younger ones - this place is very special and this community is very dear to my heart. It's constantly changing, and it is far far different than how it was five years ago, but if sticking around is what your heart desires, you will be sure to find that it is so much more than just people chatting online about mermaids.
I'm glad I got that out. Dang, my mind was buzzing after all of the hilarious things little Kal had written.
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Originally Posted by MermanJamie
Oh gosh you guys... but wow, I'm truly so honored to hear that. Can't tell you how much that lifted my day 
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