I can't thank you enough
Thanks
After about a year-long absence I've hopped back on to Tildes again. There wasn't anything about the platform that made me "leave", it was purely external things in my life. With online communities, you really don't expect people to recognize you from day to day, but people here do and it's one of the things I love about Tildes.
What has absolutely shocked me is that after being gone for a full year people recognize my username. They have been incredibly kind and welcoming. They are happy to see me again. They remember the photography posts that I made and said they look forward to seeing them again. They remember the hard times my family was experiencing and have wished me well.
I'm not trying to be dramatic, but I'm being serious when I say that this reception has made me tear up. I've never experienced this before in any community, anonymous or otherwise. In all of the noise of the internet I never really expected my voice to be heard, much less be remembered by anyone. I never anticipated strangers to care beyond the time it takes to comment on a post.
I am completely overwhelmed by this reception. This is the kind of place that I thought had gone extinct on the internet. All of you have made me feel like I matter, and I don't think there's any way I can ever express my gratitude for this.
Since I'm posting anyway, I'll give a quick update for everyone.
Family
My family is doing amazing right now. Both of my sons have flourished and made so much progress. I've been around other foster/adoptive parents and the transformation that has happened for them in such a short amount of time is nothing short of a true miracle. Neither of them has needed inpatient psych care for almost two years now, and my oldest is now able to go to a special school that can meet his needs. My youngest who has struggled his whole life with social interaction now has several friends and even a best friend. My wife and I's relationship, which was on the verge of total destruction is now back on track and stronger than ever. I really appreciate the awesome support this community gave me during the worst year of my life.
Photography
I also fell out of photography during that time, but with the new stability I have rebuilt my darkroom in our new home and I'm picking it up again. It has gone from a fun hobby to a driving passion, and I'm now partnered with a mentor who has decades of experience. With his guidance, I hope to start producing gallery-quality material. I don't know that I'll ever submit to a gallery, it's really just a personal goal to start making things I can be proud of.
Again I can't thank everyone enough for all that you've done for me. I'm excited to be here and get plugged back into this awesome place!
This was a delight to read.
When I first joined Tildes I wanted its privacy-focused nature to mean that I could be a nobody here among nobodies. I cherished the idea that my and everyone else’s identities and contributions would have a sort of disconnected weightlessness to them.
What I didn’t expect, coming from a bigger forum like reddit, was that I would recognize usernames and see contributors over and over again in different threads and topics. The nobodies on the site have, over time, become somebodies to me, and I hope I’ve become a somebody to some of y’all too.
Even if I don’t “know” someone here, if they post even somewhat regularly, I feel like I have an image of them. It’s not so much an image of a person but more a contour of a personality. Far from the disconnectedness I’d previously envisioned and even wanted, it turns out identifying those contours yields a surprising intimacy. I’m not necessarily close to most people on Tildes, but I feel very close to many of you, if that makes sense?
Also, much like you Grendel, I like the people here — a surprising amount! Absent identifying information and pictures, we build our perceptions of others out of the words they choose to share, and so many people here lead with thoughtfulness. Constantly. Sometimes to a fault, but with how thoughtless so much of the rest of the internet is, I’ll gladly take our side of the imbalance on this and the occasional frictions it produces.
I’m definitely sad about many of the great people who have left the community over the years, but my life philosophy is that we should attend first to the people we’re with, so ultimately I’m happy to share the site with those that choose to be here — whether that’s for a finite time or for the foreseeable future. Also, there’s always the possibility that people might come back, like you did!
Of all the places any of us could spend our time, we choose to do it here. Of all the ways any of us could spend our time, we choose to do it thoughtfully. This sounds self-congratulatory, but it’s meant more as general appreciation for the tone and texture of the site’s day-to-day tides. It’s slow, cozy, and contemplative — and what else online can we say that about? The contours of others I see on the wider internet tend to be defined by individuals at their worst, but the contours I see here are made by people trying to engage with the best parts of themselves — and others.
Thank you for sharing your gratitude with us, Grendel, as well as the best parts of yourself.
Also, I am THRILLED to hear that your sons are doing well! You remain a hero in my eyes for all that you have done for them.
This makes me a little sad to say, but I feel more support and a greater sense of community here than I do at my church of two years. Part of that is my fault since my families needs preclude a lot of the activities that are supposed to build those relationships, but even so I find myself wishing that people would reach out to connect.
Great to hear things are going better for your family! Glad to see you around!
Thanks for sharing those updates - it sounds like things are going well, and that's a happy thing to read!
I like that the interconnectedness of people via the internet is really on display here. You've shared things and done things that have touched people, and to me that's one of the best things about internet based communities, especially ones like Tildes that focus on tolerance. It's also a testament to people like @kwfyre who put things like TiMaSoMo together, or myriad other ~talk posts which encourage us to share things with one another.
Welcome back again, and (again) I hope some of your photos make their way back to being shared here again - I always found them interesting whenever you shared.