Desperately Seeking Gina Turns 10 Years Old

I can barely manage to comprehend 10 years in this space. Ten years of sharing what I had for dinner the night before. Ten years of stalking the cat and bugging the fiancé. And, OMGEEEEE. Ten years ago when I started this little blog? I didn’t have a fiancé. In fact, the blog actually started out as Desperately Seeking Thom. Have I shared that publicly here before?

Let me recap just a bit because if I haven’t told you the story then I really haven’t revealed my whole self to you, world.

I met Thom online years ago back when I was twenty three and he was unavailable. We lost contact but I thought about him often, wondered what might have been, if only; if only we lived closer; if only we’d met sooner; if only I was older or he was younger. I went on with life, started a new job, grew up just a little, and started to reflect on our chance meeting. I wondered if he was out there somewhere thinking of me, too, and so I started a blog on a free site I’d heard about. I kept hearing about how the internet was this magical place and that Google could find anyone. Desperately Seeking Thom was born on Blogger. It was just one post on a black screen with my email address and a little message for Thom to email me.

And then? Crickets. Not a word.

The site sat for, oh, about six months before I sighed, gave up, and decided that perhaps some self reflection would bring closure and a new awakening. I changed the blog name to Desperately Seeking Gina and went on with life, again. I traveled to Europe and when I returned home, the blog was a good way to relay my adventures in one space for my family to read and live vicariously through me. Shortly after writing those posts I went on vacation again, this time with friends to their island up north (in Michigan).  I was unplugged that week, no internet, no mobile phone with internet connection, no checking email, blog, internet at all.

When I got home and finally logged on, there was a comment on one of my Europe posts-a note from Thom. He’d found me through a bot search that scoured the internet and found my blog.

It was…magic.

Life, it turned out, had not gone as planned and Thom found himself heartbroken and remembering me, after all. That comment on my blog led to phone calls and five months later, a face-to-face meeting. A year of long distance dating and Thom traveling to Michigan from Arkansas a few times a month led to my decision to move to Arkansas. Luckily, I had a place to stay and a new friend to show me around. We’ve been together ever since.

The bow that tied up our story into a neat little romantic package was Thom’s marriage proposal at a blogger conference I was attending in front of a crowd of women bloggers.

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Our story. It’s how this space started. It’s how I documented finding the love of my life, a new home in a new state, and new friends along the way. It seems fitting for a ten year celebration of Desperately Seeking Gina.

Not to mention a brand new pretty site on a self-hosted platform with shiny new buttons and a new logo. I’m happy to relaunch DSG today. I’m still trying to figure it out as I go-the site and life.

Thanks, friends, for sharing them both with me. Your friendship online and in real life bring me the most joy and is the cure for any homesickness that creeps in every now and then. I hope that I can continue to seek out new friendships, new hobbies, new opportunities in this space for another ten years.