A Very Difficult Good-Bye...

Hey jammers! It's Panda here! (Yes, I had to look at my old posts to check to see how I actually started all of my posts. Because I forgot. ^.^)

It's been awhile, hasn't it?

Nearly 6 months actually. Half a year.

Gosh, I promised myself I wouldn't tear up while writing this post, and I've already failed (and only 4 paragraphs in, too).

I started this blog 3 years ago (and started blogging a year before that), and I had no idea then how much this blog (and my old blog--props to you if you remember it!) would change my life.

I've talked about this before, but Animal Jam truly has changed my life. I know that sounds cheesy and overly dramatic, but it really has. I've met so many amazing, amazing, amazing people, and they have all been so insanely supportive of me, my weirdness and my ambitious adventures.

But I'm quitting.

Wow, I never knew those words would ever be posted on this site.

I thought I'd never quite Animal Jam or blogging. But I guess things change.

School has sort of taken over, and to be honest, Animal Jam sort of lost it's sparkle for me. I got more interested in making edits and commissions for you guys than actually playing the game.

Without starting this graphics and commissions site, I would never have gotten into graphic design, image editing, or learning Photoshop. I've advanced so much as a writer because of my blogging, and as someone who wants to be an author when she grows up, I am forever thankful for that.

You know, I began this blog for extremely selfish reasons. I spent some time watching videos by famous jammers like Julian2, WisteriaMoon and snowyclaw, and thought: "Hey! I want to be famous too!" So that's why I started this blog. I didn't start it to help people, or to make friends, I did just to become famous.

I regret that so much.

But that wasn't my motive anymore once I had blogged for a few months. I had found my passion, and fame seemed arbitrary and irrelevant at that point.

I was actually helping people, both with their lives and their blogs. That made me so incredibly happy, and I threw the whole "fame" mantra away and replaced it with a desire to continue helping people.

Watching my blog grow was one of the most rewarding and valuable experiences of my life. Watching that views counter go from a slowly crawling 3 views a day to nearly 20,000 per month was practically a miracle, and it made me so incredibly proud.

And it seems only yesterday that we were at 1,000 views, and yet now we're at 230,000. I am so thankful for each and every view.

There are over 3,700 comments on this blog, and I still feel like I can recite each one of them. All of your kind words and support is burned into my memory, and I doubt I will ever forget it.

Man, this post is already so jumbled and disorganized. I have so many things to say to you guys, and they're all just spewing out of me at once.

I see this blog as a sort of diary for myself for the past 3 years. When I go back and read my daily updates posts from a few years back, I remember how this blog was a sort of safe haven for me when I came back from school. I had moved, and I was having a lot of trouble making friends, and it was extremely difficult and painful for me to go to school. But when I was blogging, I was happy, and I'm so thankful for this blog, as it helped me get through that difficult point in my life.

I remember spending hours on hot summer days updating the blog's pages and working on commissions in Photoshop. I remember my computer heating up and scorching my legs, but ignoring it, because I was having too much fun designing stuff for you guys.

I remember reading your comments trickle in when I had first started my blog, being so ecstatic that people were actually reading my blog posts. I remember how Arcticpenguinii was the first one to ever comment on my blog, and I remember how nafaria9 made a few appearances after that. I remember meeting Mimi5000 on Christmas day 2014, and meeting Makou a few days after that. I remember meeting Cutepups522 and lovely1147046 and Creaturelover123 and Lostfairy and Cosmic and Princessbg and Ineffable and swirlshine and Spiritpaw and so, so, so many others.

Oh God, I'm actually crying now.

Now that I've lost it, I should probably end this post... but just a few last words:

This is the end, for now. But know that this is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I hate ending things, and I hate moving on from things that I love. 

I might come back for occasional visits, and I might not. I don't know. But I know that I have been blessed by the most supportive, funny, insanely kind and enduring community ever, and that we can make it through anything together.

For the last time,

Play wild and jam on!

-Panda