As Michael Jackson once said: 'This Is It.' Five years ago to the day, I joined Steemit after more than a year of lurking on the site after seeing the reports that someone had found a way to combine blogging and crypto.

I can still see the Facebook report in my mind, and remember clicking out of it but being drawn to check out the site anyway. The rest as they say, is history.

I learned a great deal during that year spent lurking onsite, and watched YouTube tutorials on the best practices necessary to be a good member of the community. Thus some may have been surprised when I began posting and had things formatted correctly and all images sourced, unlike some brand new people who'd jumped in with both feet first.

After coming from Blogger where my work had been copied by a blog thief from a South Asian country, I was ready again to contribute to this growing community who saw as I did, that crypto represented the future.

The seamless transition from Steemit to Hive, was yet another testament to the ability of this community to pitch in when the going got tough. "All hands on deck!" seemed to be the rallying cry as developers rolled up their sleeves and got to work building the home we all reside in today. It was a Herculean effort that continues to provide a warm embrace for newcomers to Hive.

Navigating Bumps In The Road

But there has been some bumps in the road on the way. If you've been a reader of this blog for any amount of time, you've heard me mention that I've had to take on an outsized responsibility in caring for an ill family member. She is the Matriarch of the family, and while her body may be broken, her mind is as sharp as ever.

Always a proud woman, she values her privacy and will not detail to us what she is suffering from. We suspect it's cancer, and when I tried to gently broach the subject, she deftly batted away the question, so we all have to respect that.

This is one of the reasons I can relate so much to @josediccus who's an inspiring blogger here on Hive. While he has the expectations of the first-born, I am the second-born in the family, but the eldest (and only) male.

Being the "responsible one" in the family, I have to counter the grifters who repeatedly charge my ill relative money to do very basic things such as taking out the trash and performing even the simplest of tasks.

Being on a fixed income, they are draining her funds. When I first went over there and found out the scope of the problem, I tried stopping them to no avail. I asked my relative if she wanted me to call the police and report them for elder abuse, but she said no, she didn't want to be remembered for that. So as a busy student who works at times, I make my way over there to do for free what my thieving family members charge her money for.

I've turned down all offers of money from her, but it gives her joy to cook a little dinner for me instead which I dare not turn down. :) So what little funds I have goes to keep me and the woman who acted like a second mother to me growing up, afloat. It's the right thing to do.

Your Support Matters

I live in an area recently dominated by a certain ethnic group. Gone is the mostly Polish, Irish, German and Italian neighborhood I grew up in when at my grandmothers house.

They have been run out by the violence brought in by people from big cities attracted by the lower costs and relative safety of these smaller towns in Pennsylvania. Areas where one never had to lock their front doors have now become a nightly shooting gallery of big city people who care nothing about killing their fellow man.

The domination is so complete, that a search for jobs becomes almost futile, as this ethnic group looks out only for their own. American citizens have been turned down for employment in favor of recently arrived immigrants.

When Americans do get hired, they don't usually last very long, as they are last hired, and first fired whenever a new refugee needs work. And people wonder why this Democrat-majority county went for Trump in 2016. While I'm not a supporter, I get it. So finding steady work almost requires running across a hidden sanctuary where Americans still control the levers of employment.

So being a sometimes working student who cares for the Grande Dame of the family, while dealing with the headwinds of finding employment in an environment hostile to US citizens. This led me to my first powerdown ever in 2020, and my second earlier this year in the fallout of war, the market crashing and rampant inflation. When I powerdown or sell assets, its completely out of necessity.

It was painful to have to liquidate those assets that I'd spent almost five years building up. Just as my posts on LeoFinance and Hive were gaining traction and I was regularly buying Hive tokens, and looking forward to becoming a Dolphin on Hive soon (I was so close!).

I'd been turned down for several jobs in a row with the screeners telling me that the other immigrant employees would never accept an American working among them.

The fact is that your upvotes support not only me, but allows me to do more for the ailing matriarch of our family. Over the winter I went down to her house to find it cold, she'd been unable to pay to keep the heat on, so I dipped into my savings and got it turned back on.

Most of the older people in our family grew up on farms and were used to being self-sufficient. Those in the neighborhood known to be taking payments from the government were seen as being lazy, so that's the culture she was raised in.

I know the whales and others don't like to support people who powerdown or sell tokens, but sometimes life intrudes in ways in which we have no control over. As soon as I powered down, the support evaporated. Thus the muting, downvoting and shunning does nothing positive, and actually prolongs a negative situation. These are the times when good Hivers need your support the most.

The Next Five Years

But I'm not going anywhere. You don't really think I spent five years writing hundreds of blog posts and leaving thousands of comments to just give up when the times are hard? Not going to happen. Looking back over my history, when the funds started coming in again, I went right back to buying and building my stake. Nothing's changed.

To those of you that "get it" and are still supporting me, you have my eternal gratitude. A few days ago, I found a spot still run by Americans where I might have a shot at getting hired. We'll see what happens.

I’d like to thank @broncnutz and @meesterboom for making me smile through the difficult times with their posts. @jongolson and @taskmaster for keeping us informed, and @khaleelkazi for creating a home-within-a-home on LeoFinance.

Over the last five years, Hive has reawakened my love for blogging, and as far as I'm concerned, It's full speed ahead for the next "Five on Hive!" :)

If you liked this article, please upvote and reblog, thanks!

Please check out my recent posts:

---

• The Art Of Blogging

• Living In Visual Media

• Tired of Google Scanning Your Emails? This Email Service Puts Privacy First!

• 3 Things That Make Your Blog Stand Out From The Rest

• Touching Lives, One Person At A Time

Image Credit: [1] @EverNoticeThat Created using Canva

---