On Timing (to all the strangers in my DMs)

Some time ago I got a message request on Facebook and today I finally got to reading it. The DM was from some stranger who apparently found my blog. Not this one though. The Ukrainian blog which I've abandoned years ago due to the lack of support and unnecessary criticism on the part of likewise random strangers who thought that since I haven't majored in x, y, or z, my opinion is not valid. Moreover, the strangers who straight out told me to shut up - I've got the screenshots to prove it.

Strangely, this time it was a message of praise. The girl told me how she liked my blog. And how she went to my FB page and was astonished by the abundance of artwork and whatnot. And that she, sadly, couldn't find my YT channel (of course, not - I've hidden all the Ukrainian videos I was getting hate for because, again, I'm not an English major).

Yadda. Yadda. Yadda.

I read the message and deleted it without replying.

Too little, too late.

I'm tired of being ahead of my time. No, not even that. I'm tired of people shooing me away because I tell them the exact same things that they come to discover two-three years from now.

It used to happened with my close ones, and with random strangers on the internet, all the same.

I am done thinking "I told you so" and watching others reap benefits from something I've predicted years and years before.

I wanted to blog and make videos in Ukrainian in 2013. No one wanted it.

I said that ARCs are a thing. A certain Ukrainian publisher wouldn't believe me. Then two years later, they all started doing it because the Ukrainian Booktube picked up and they wanted in on the game.

I wanted to be friends with my cousins ten years ago. They didn't want it. And now they have the audacity to claim that I have some responsibilities to them because suddenly they've remembered that we are faaaamily. Well, mostly it only concerns my sister. They've flushed me down the drain years ago. And I'll be happy if I never have to see them again.

I've always tried to do my part, but if people don't appreciate it, I'm gonna leave.

I only have so much patience and energy to spare.

People say to do things without expecting anything in return. That's pure manipulation. Even simple acts of kindness that go without saying... If you open a door for someone and they tell you to eff off, you're not gonna do it the next time. That's common sense.

I'm tired of these mental games. I've stepped away from the Ukrainian blogging and vlogging scenes. I have nothing to do with them anymore.

At least, when I'm blogging in English, they don't expect me to check certain boxes. I can just be me. That is... as long as I'm not blogging about politics!

Just now, I went and privated all of my blog posts. Гніздечко Гальці no longer exists. Almost two hundred posts, Jesus! Finally, I can be at peace.

To tell the truth, with all the effort and love I've put into that blog, now, when I get these seldom messages that "hey, your blog isn't complete garbage", it just pisses me off. I ditched it five years ago (not counting a few private journal-type posts before I started journaling somewhere else). I've moved on. I don't need any more reminders of that failed project.

That goes for any of my failures.

Cut off the loose ends.

At least one pleasant bonus after having abandoned my blog and YT channel is that I no longer get an array of children and parents in my DMs demanding to do their English homework. Good riddance!