A Year in the Life of a Retired Kid Blogger

PropertyOfZack was laid to rest a year ago today. Since then, most things have changed for me. I moved back to New York, I shed several jobs and responsibilities while gaining more, I bought a house, I moved in with my partner, and I even started liking seltzer (but not LaCroix – yet?).

Towards the end of my stay in Philly, the majority of my activities were singular, while everything I noted above has involved positive outside forces and collaboration. 

Graduating college was rewarding in a finally kind of way, but I was stuck beyond that in a job that was cancerous and a studio apartment that was isolated. I had no plans to leave, but an opportunity pulled me away and I’m very thankful to have jumped into something new.

Every month or so, someone will ask me if I miss running the website. The answer never waivers from “no,” but I do miss the community of people around it from Jesse and Adrienne to very excited Twitter followers. It does, after all, seem crazy that a website that primarily existed because of blink-182, Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, and Kevin Devine bowed out the year before each of those bands released new music. But that’s life.

While I still tweet endlessly, it felt like a noticeable internal change has taken place to be able to be less public, which is something that was beginning to take a real strain on me over the final year of the site’s existence. And that has been healthy for me. 

I did and do love the website though. And I was and am proud of all that was accomplished despite hardships, mistakes, internal and external ignorance, and arthritis. 

I hope more music blogs pop up in the next year.

I hope I write more.

I hope you all listen to the great music I’m lucky enough to be involved in. 

And I hope my wrist stops hurting.