One year ago today, I launched this blog. I’d just been through six months of wondering “What the hell do I do now?” I was paralyzed, demoralized, and utterly frustrated by having had to give in to my disability and quit working. It didn’t help that the job I quit was the best I ever had, but it also didn’t matter. A really big, heavy door had just slammed shut on a really big part of my life, and I was forced to examine my new situation and my new identity.

While beginning to work this out, I dove headlong into the waters I’d only been treading up till then for lack of time and energy. Skeptical blogs and podcasts began to fill my day, and my Twitter stream became more and more populated by other skeptics. I revamped my Facebook page so that I could keep up with the discussions happening there. At first, my appetite was modest, but the more I consumed, the more ravenous I became. (Skepticism as subtraction soup.) I put myself through a serious skeptical bootcamp that was nothing but fascinating, educational, and exciting.

I love to learn, and although I couldn’t work, I could still do that. The skeptical community offered a place for me to do grad-school amounts of reading and synthesizing information, not to mention daily interacting with intimidatingly smart people who wanted to use critical thinking to make the world a better place. It was inspirational, revelatory, and ultimately showed me an alternative to my feelings of helplessness and, worse, uselessness.

I didn’t intend Newly Nerfed to be a skeptical blog. I thought it would focus more on the things I do still write about a lot, disability and chronic illness and nerdy stuff like games and movies. But it proved to be impossible to leave the powerful new focus in my life out of this blog. I connected so strongly to skepticism that I wanted to write about it, even as a neophyte. And the rest can be read in my posts.

When I started this blog, people were talking about TAM 7. Fascinating, I thought, but I couldn’t see myself at that kind of conference. Surely it was for the professors and physicians and scientists I’d been reading, and not for someone like me. And then a year later I was discussing the effects of James Randi’s public and vehement support of science-based medicine during his cancer treatments…with James Randi.

I can’t even begin to express how much TAM 8 meant to me. I had every kind of experience you hear about: meeting “old” friends for the first time, meeting new friends for the first time, having practical discussions, having meta discussions, learning things that are directly applicable to my interests, having my mind blown open by new ideas, meeting heroes and having actual discourse with them, and laying the groundwork for future projects. I came away from TAM wonderfully energized with plans and schemes for the coming year (and with gratitude for the luminaries who kindly allowed me to ambush them with an idea, and for their support of that idea).

A year ago I didn’t know what to do. I held on to my passion for learning, for making a difference, and for writing, none of which got hit by the nerf bat. And then I found myself in a community of people who shared those passions, and I’ve started to find my way. I am so grateful for this year and the incredible people I’ve met and worked with (and will work with in the future). I thank all of you so much, skeptics and believers, friends and strangers, for helping, teaching, and of course entertaining me so damn much this year. I especially want to thank “Surly” Amy Davis Roth and Desiree Schell for their early encouragement of an avid but nervous noob, and Daniel Loxton for being a role model of skeptical communication to which I continue to aspire.

Most importantly, I thank my husband Paul. Not a single step on this wonderful journey would have been possible without his love, care, and support. Throughout everything from health woes to skeptical successes, he has been unswervingly by my side, which I assure you is not always an easy place to be. None of what I’ve experienced, learned, or accomplished this year means anything without the joy I take in having my best friend and twu wuv to share it with. He challenges me to be better, and accepts me when I fail. And I mean, he’s a skeptical atheist gamer geek who can kick serious ass in meatspace — did I win the lottery or what?

Here’s to sticking around for year two. I appreciate it.