Quite an emotional beginning and an ending full of nostalgia, I really feel that I missed a good bottle to celebrate while reading.
Damn 6 years is easy to say but the absence of that 99% contemporary with you being gone says a lot about your perseverance and encouragement to be here.
Meeting and working with cool people is exciting, stalking badasses maybe can be enjoyable, but joining a (nerd) community and fighting for it to the point of being one of the cornerstones is admirable (even reminded me of a certain nerd movie I can't remember the title of).
I am not as old and active as I would like to be after reading your article, however after reading it I have received a lot more desire to be active, I also liked the small community perspective, projects that tend to rise disproportionately tend to die out in a relatively short time.
I could go on adding lines but this is a comment not a post! In any case, I'm glad to be here to read your unique anniversary statement after 6 years of learning and experiences. Happy anniversary, may there be many more to come!!!!!!
Glad to hear you enjoyed the read so much! I don't think you need to envy being on here slightly longer than you though haha... you will soon be able to say the same and have an equivalent journey, if you haven't already in a shorter time. There was a fairly big period where I was pretty inactive until fairly recently.
But yeah even when I stopped writing I never felt like it 'ended'. Just couldn't be bothered at the time cause life got in the way. Still feel there's no reason to 'quit'.
Open a bottle, celebrate and keep up the community writing!