How Many Years???

If I could describe the feeling of writing the post in one word, it would be disbelief. Disbelief is a pretty good word. Before even thinking about this website, I wouldn’t have comprended that I would even be in this moment, writing a four-year anniversary post. In 2020, I couldn’t have formulated that the year Two Thousand and Twenty-Four existed, much less that all the events of this year would have happened as they did. That being said, I think I now can grasp the feeling more thoroughly. I have a vague idea of what will happen in 2028, or for that matter, any point in the future, but I could never really say for sure.

A major reason I’m thankful for this fourth year is because I really didn’t expect to still be running this website for such an extended period of time. If you look at any Adventures in Odyssey blogs that rose to prominence and ended up dead or stagnant, a common lifetime span typically ends around the four to five year mark. That’s a significant portion of why I’m so proud and thankful to still be here. If you asked a younger me what he thought her be writing in four years, the answer would more likely be “farewell post” than “fourth year anniversary post”. Now that I think about it, my answer to the question of how long I expected to do this was always hopeful in nature, not expectant. I thought by now, the intense nature of college work and life in general would flush this out. Now, we’ve come close to that reality numerous times, especially last year, where this blog in particular underperformed severely due to some personal events. We didn’t even have a real anniversary, if you’ll remember. 2024 came back with a vengeance, though, with most new content being super successful by our standards. In many ways, this is still very much a hobby for me, but it’s one of my favorite things to do in what little free time I have left. That’s the way it will likely always be for me and this site. When the time does come that I have to step away, my biggest hope is that I’ve created something that’s big enough to live on it’s own and with enough people I can trust to hand it off to.

If you’ve followed for some time, you’ll understand that AIO Writer’s Block really had two anniversaries. The first is the one we’re celebrating all this week, October 7th. The second is actually New Year’s Day, which is the anniversary of the AIO Writer’s Block name. This is also when I provide an update on the vision around here. This year, I want to use this anniversary to reaffirm and refine this vision with a new AIO Writer’s Block combined mission and vision statement.

AIO Writer’s Block is a community of passionate Adventures in Odyssey fans creating high-quality content for enthusiasts of all ages and interest levels. By becoming one the largest group of AIO fan creators, we will continue to provide a robust, diverse, and consistent stream to a new generation of individuals, pointing them to both Odyssey and Christ.

When somebody asks what AIO Writer’s Block is all about, I hope to point them to this as an answer. You can see this new mission statement at the bottom of our homepage. I’ll be doing a lot of talking and thanking and congratulating this week, so I really want to keep this short. I suppose there’s not much left to do except raise a toast to the next four years!