I’m publishing this post today instead of yesterday because it seems apt to wait a day, and also because I didn’t notice the notification until last night.
So when I was 23 years old I registered for my first WordPress.com website. I know it was called something rediculous, but whatever it was called I wish I still had access to it.
I wish I could visit myself at 23 and tell her that things are going to get tougher, but turn out alright mostly in the end anyways.
I wish I could tell the young person searching for herself behind every guy she could find, that life is better without them but that’s a life lesson she had to learn on her own.
Although some have surpassed the typical guy trope, not enough of them to matter in the end.
I’d also tell her that the world is so much bigger than she knows, but she’d have learned that eventually too, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.
More importantly than what I’d tell her, I wonder more what she might have to say to me. I’m not that same girl I was at 23…for starters I am non-binary and woman presenting now, which is very different. I don’t feel the need to let myself fall into any of the “Womanly” tropes unless I want to.
The pressure to be a girl or a woman is off my shoulders because I am both and neither all at the same time and that is super freeing.
I’d tell her that a lot of the stories she wants to tell, will be told half as well by white women who won’t necessarily appreciate their audience the way they should, which is why it’s absolutely imperative she finish that fucking book.
If I had known for sure for sure, what was coming for us I probably wouldn’t have warned her. If I’d known, I don’t think I’d have survived the anticipation openly.
But I made it out. The darkness for what it’s worth past and I am still here eighteen years later, my voice more powerful than it has ever fucking been, and for that I owe WordPress, the developers, the team and the staff that make this website possible, all the love in the world.
Entire lives have been born, and lost in the time it’s been since I started writing on WordPress.com.
Millions have come, billions have gone, and yet I’m still here.
Platforms like WordPress make voices of people like me, loud and proudly so. They give us a platform so that we can take all that insecurity and unsurity about the world and put it somewhere where others can join us and thus we end up feeling less afraid and alone.
In short, platforms like WordPress save lives, and I think that matters. So if anyone from WP reads this, thank you for the work you do. From answering irate customers on the phone and through email, to making sure our websites stay safe, thank you.
You are beloved.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 