10k on Instagram!

I've been thinking a lot about how to celebrate 10k followers. But the only thing I really wanted was to invite you all here, to my home. This blog, this web of thoughts, has been home to me for the past 10 years, and finally being able to invite you here whenever I feel like it makes me happy.

Theres so many of you.

There was many of you already whe you were 50 or 678 or 3,423 or 8,952. And you keep growing and growing and growing. Since the very beginning, I kept imagining a grassy field with many little chairs, one for me and another 10,000 for you. This thought has always been with me, "this is not just a number, it's 543 people reading what I write".

But then, along the way – I admit it – there were times when that number… was just a number.

When I write, write, write, but IG doesn't show you my content because it prioritizes big accounts. Or when you hundreds of you ask me privately the same link to the same blog post and I have to copy and paste it hundreds of times because I don't have the swipe-up. When I want to share with you an article or a video that made me think, but I don't because "how can I share it easily?".

In those moments, we weren't many little chairs, we were a number, and that number was frustrating, demotivating. It brought out a part of me that I didn't like, it wasn't me. In my life, I have learned to fight against whatever doesn't make me happy, either by changing myself or the circumstances. In this case I thought I had to change the circumstances, a bit like when I feel addicted to sugar and remove sugar for months.

And then you showed up. Even the ones who never write, even the ones who follow me silently, even the ones whom I didn't know existed. I don't know how many of you wrote to me yesterday, cuddling me and alleviating my frustration.

But I know one thing. I don't want to leave this community on Instagram.

Instagram has given me a lot. It's where I started my personal evolution and learned concepts that have changed me immensely – body positivity, disordered eating, gender discrimination, ableism, anti-racism. On Instagram I found Italian friends who share my values ​​and whom I'm now inc ontact on whatsapp – and this would have been difficult not only because I lived in Spain, but also had I lived in a small Italian town.

No, 10k doesn't change my love-and-hate relationship with Instagram. But it changes my attitude, it brings it back to the way it was, when I couldn't care less about growing – if I stop here, I swear I would be happy anyway. Because this is my home – these pages you are reading – and now I can invite you over whenever I want.

To these 10,000 🥂. And maybe one day we really meet on a grassy field (no chairs, though, bring a mat).

You rock. We rock. Thanks for showing up.