Please, take a minute to go back with me in time to June 2004:

• John Kerry is working to prevent George W. Bush’s second term.
• The pop charts are dominated by The Black Eyed Peas, Avril Lavigne, and Maroon 5.
• MySpace is the site for connecting with others, while Facebook is still only available on college campuses
• Grey’s Anatomy won’t debut on ABC for another nine months.
• You can smoke in restaurants and bars (and many movie theaters).
• Texting happens by pressing the (actual, physical) number buttons on your phone.
• Renewed for another season: George Lopez, My Wife and Kids, and That ‘70s Show
• And I decide it’s time I have my own blog.

The very first blog is believed to have been created in 1994, and Blogger.com started in 1999. People treated blogs (from “web logs”) like personal journals, and for a while new blogs sprouted at the startling rate of any cultural fad. But — as I like reminding people — in 2004 the word was that blogs were over. Experts said they’d run their course and we were all moving on.

Nevertheless, I believed I deserved a place for my dazzling insights and daring opinions, plus, as with just about everything in this country, there wasn’t nearly enough representation by Mexican American women online. Our voices needed a cyberplace, and I would lead the way!

Actually, it wasn’t like that. I just love to write and have the hubris to believe anyone cares what I think.

A 2004 article told me these were the requirements to be a blogger:

• You like to write
• You have access to the Internet (the word was capitalized back then)
• You have free time at least a few days out of every week
• You can commit to a consistent posting schedule

I read that article and that did it: I was in! My very first post (on Thu, June 17, 2004) was one paragraph long and I’ve been blogging ever since, in varying degrees of frequency.

For many years I treated this blog more like a journal for my personal reactions to my life. I don’t think it was very interesting back then. I didn’t even always explain what I was talking about! (Proposition 8??) I like to think it’s become relevant to more people in the past 10 years.

From the beginning I’ve covered:

• Relationships (dating, friendship, family, marriage, divorce)
• Work (I’ve had many jobs)
• Culture (American and Mexican American)
• Politics (but not anymore)
• More that’s usually taboo, including but not limited to: menstruation, menopause, money, mental illness, middle age, being overweight, loneliness, death, addiction, racism, and religion.

I’m sure many of my posts would be evaluated by most people as lapses in good judgment. While I care what others think of me, I don’t care to the same degree as most people, so I tend to express what others keep to themselves. (I don’t know why I’m like this.)

NOTE: I used to get lots of comments on my posts, especially for posts about dating, but I lost many of the early ones when I switched commenting apps (I should never have used an external commenting platform!)

It’s been 20 years of Chicana on the Edge and there’s no end in sight. I deeply appreciate everyone who’s ever read this blog, and I especially thank those reading right now!

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