SOFT LAUNCH — Stolen By a Bohlen

Mar 2

Mar 2 SOFT LAUNCH

It may not be cool to call it a “soft launch” anymore, but this is my official post saying that I am back to writing within this space.

Almost four years has passed since I last showed up here, and so much has happened within that time. I honestly wasn’t sure HOW to come back. Do you try to go back and account for all the moments I missed? Do I start where I am now? I’m still not sure, but one thing I did want to do was tell you WHY I am back.

I’m going to preface this with:

“IT DOES NOT MATTER TO ME IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE THE STORY I AM GOING TO TELL YOU...”

It is almost unbelievable to myself even, and I wasn’t planning on sharing it, but decided it was far too divine to keep in my heart alone.

2024 and the state of the world right now is…bleak and expensive. It’s actually offensive how much I spend on groceries for a family of three that heavily cooks homemade meals AT HOME. Inflation is the buzz word that hangs in the air like a big dirty cloud waiting to ruin your day. It’s like…if I step outside, it costs a minimum of $100 or something. I don’t understand it, but life is expensive.

When things are tight, it’s pretty normal to do a scan of all your finances to see where you can cut. And one thing that Dave Ramsey himself would BOP me on the head for is this website. I’ve been paying for my domain + hosting services all this time without using any of it. StolenbyaBohlen.com has been a ghost town…but yet, I continued to pay for it for years.

It doesn’t make sense to pay for something this long that you are not utilizing. Blogging feels kind of like a weathered book sitting on a dusty shelf, which is ironic because I think that’s how real books felt when the internet became THE resource for everyone. People don’t spend time digesting someone’s thoughts or processes anymore because social media has turned us into humans that have small bursts of attention; people that crave hooks to pull them in or they swipe away from you. Twitter (they recently died, BTW) forced people into 140 characters, reels on Instagram perform well when they are within 3-8 seconds, etc. Everything is bite-sized, and honestly, I hate it.

So, realistically, it made sense for me to archive this website and all of my posts after so much time had passed. Wouldn’t you agree? Probably. But something CRAZY happened to me every single time that thought came into my head. You’re not going to believe me. I shouldn’t even post about this, but I do have proof.

Every single time I felt like I should abandon this project/blog, it was like the inner workings of the universe and its intricate machinery began to churn. Because within days of having that thought, I would receive a notification that someone had commented on my blog. And these weren’t just some simple comment. These were pointed comments that were meaningful in this struggle to stay or go. One comment thanked me for writing a blog post and how it meant a lot to them. Another said this was exactly what they wanted to read today. I even had someone say “I’m so glad I found this blog”.

“Think what you want, but that kind of harmony belongs to some kind of higher power orchestration over my life, and my life only. ”

MIND YOU, these are all old blog posts I’ve written at least four years ago…I have no active SEO or any reasonable way to obtain traffic to my website to the perfect person needing to hear my words. THAT…is something I cannot explain, but I am so grateful to have those signs put into my life!

It lessened the noise I placed on that decision. “I should do this; I should do that” I didn’t need to do anything, but listen to myself and what I wanted. And what I want is part of a larger dream. A dream that I don’t even really know what it looks like, but I do know that I want to write a book someday, and “someday” feels closer for some reason.

We get these ideas in our head that we have to have *perfect conditions* to pursue a dream. I have been guilty of that thought process, particularly in regards to writing and even my photography. It felt like a book wasn’t possible without a studio…knowing damn well that I don’t own or have the means to build one. Though, I do have a cool idea to turn a trolley bus into a studio on my property…:)

If you want to write a book, you’ve got to write! Waiting for someone to give you enough space and time in the perfect environment is never going to be obtainable for me. So, this is my space when I make the time to be within THIS environment: stolenbyabohlen.com. This has been the perfect place. I’m here to stay.