Over the last 9 months I have fallen in love with the steem blockchain all over again.

I first joined in January of 2017 and after doing some blogging about hiking and bushcrafting I got out of the habit of posting. I was pretty busy scouting out areas to camp and at the time the eSteem app was not very reliable for me.

I just simply got out of the routine of being on it, and, as humans we are creatures of habit.

Once Bitcoin got back in the news and prices started climbing I went and looked at my various holdings. Oh hey: look at all that changed on Steemit! Awesome dApps, growing community, man I missed so much!

Eventually I stumbled upon DLive and found my home. I was not very good at blogging or taking pictures so I always felt that I had to try 100x harder than most to find any kind of success or traction on the platform. The couple things I had going for me were: excitement, sincerity and a desire to be social.

I quickly found enjoyment out of meeting everyone on the platform and it didn't take long for me to be pretty familiar with most people in the community. 

I didn't have a computer, everything I did was from my phone. A friend had a laptop and we would use that to stream but I still did not really know what I was doing.

Ever since my son started watching youtube he wanted to make videos and steam. In a way, having a desire to stream was just as much a product of wanting to see my son happy as it was for my own desire of feeling part of a family in the community.

I liquidated over 2/3 of my crypto (less than 20% was from my steem holdings in exchanges) and purchased a laptop. From there, with my rewards I purchased a blue yeti mic, headphones, and a webcam.

I still didn't really know what I was doing. But I wanted to do better and I wanted to give this opportunity to my son to try this out too. I created him an account: @tegansteems and the excitement level was through the roof. I never thought I was going to stream before but MY SON has ALWAYS wanted to. I guess I am a sucker for seeing my son happy.

Eventually I decided that I wanted to make some sort of community project and that I when I came up with the idea of @dlive24hour.

It was pretty timely for me. At the time I was having some issues IRL and this was a great needed distraction for me. I have always battled with depression and anxiety and streaming kind of gave me something to look forward to so I could focus on things that made me happy rather than focus on the things that would bring me down.

For better or for worse I started to isolate myself and it got to the point where 90% of my social interactions were here on the blockchain. 

Facebook bored me and otherwise gave me a negative outlook on people in general. The Steem blockchain was different: it fostered a generally positive outlook and positive interactions. I was able to put down my guard and genuinely feel happy for the first time in ... Well a long time.

I gave a lot to this blockchain. More things than I can list or detail or put into quantifiable terms. The time I spent here can never be recovered and the money I lost skipping work for @dlive24hour projects, leaving work early, coming in late (because I was up until 4 am the night before) will NEVER, EVER be matched in any rewards I EVER get here. Come for the rewards, stay for the community is, at least to me, 100% correct. I never NEEDED the rewards, I make decent money and I never had to power down or cash them out to survive. The only significant cashing out of any crypto I did (other than to upgrade my equipment) was to make the numbers work out to drive to NYC for the dlive meet up... In a car that is 20 years old, without ac, without power steering, would shake when I went above 60 and the turn signals would randomly go out. But hey: the cost and things I had to go through were worth the hassle (to me).

I literally slept 3 hours a night for the first 4 nights after the annoucement. I took this HARD. 

I would argue that there are very few on the blockchain that was affected more than me regarding this. I gave everything I had to build a community and the fracturing that came from it breaks my heart. 

What an idiot: All this time I thought the interactions I had were sincere. Evidently, they were largely based off of insincere networking for the benefit of their own SP. 

What a fool I was. 

I hope this all settles down and we can all go on being friends (at least with those that sincerely want wants best for everyone and not just their own wallets.)

I have a lot more to say but I already spent my entire lunch not eating typing this up on a phone because I have to get this off my chest.

I am hurt and I am devastated by the one-on-one interactions I have had on here and the tribalism that has made me feel like I am not welcome on here if I do not blindly follow the tribe without question.

I am a free thinker and if I must suck the teet of those that I don't agree with to be successful on here, maybe it is not for me. 

That being said, maybe I am still emotional and hurt from some of the things said to me on here. 

Maybe I am overreacting, maybe I just am speculating. 

Maybe the fact that I don't power down, that I actually buy steem and power it up (and donate to others) that I have no intention of cashing out any amount until we hit the moon, maybe makes me jaded and more hurt than those with no loyalty to this blockchain.

Maybe I am over-reacting. Maybe I am spot on.