The micro-blogging site that changed the world…

Seven years ago today, a site launched that would change my life. 18 months later I would find out about it and sign up. I learned about Twitter at work. I was reading some article about marketing and the author mentioned this new micro-blogging site that was starting to take off.

At first, I didn’t get it. As you can see from my very first tweet…it wasn’t interesting.

The tweet that started it all.

Eventually, Twitter became another creative writing outlet for me. In this ADD world, it was perfect. The thoughts that crowded my mind would quickly find an escape. Not all of my thoughts were lengthy enough for a blog post, but they needed to be expressed. I’d already been blogging for three years at that point, but my creativity was always yearning for another outlet.

What I didn’t know then was that in 3 and a half years, I would meet the love of my life through Twitter.

At first, I followed people whose blogs I read. I’d regularly commented on them, but Twitter let me interact with them in almost real time. Eventually, I started following whoever they were following because their retweets were interesting. Through the course of my online life, I gathered more people to follow and who followed me.

One of those people lead me to Paul. I still remember the day I started following him. His profile and his tweets called to something in me. We seemed to have the same outlook on so many things, the same sense of humor…Plus, I liked the picture of the gopher he used in his avatar.

It was at tweetups that I made the conversion of online friends to friends in real life. It still amazes me that if you interact with someone on Twitter enough, you will get the gist of how they are in real life. And they only have 140 characters to get their point across.

So, here’s to you, Twitter. Thank you to those people who invented you and keep you running. I’m moving to Minnesota next month to live with Paul and it’s all your fault that I’m happier than I’ve ever been.