I got an email over a month ago reminding me that it was time to renew my domain name. I marked it as important, then promptly went about my business for another 35 days.

I think I got a warning when I posted my most recent article, and thought, “Well, it’s probably time to settle up that tab,” then promptly forgot again because I’m sure my wallet was at least ten feet away from me, and I was engrossed in reading, writing, and watching baseball, as I’m wont to do.

Today’s final reminder came in the form of an email, which I read in the bitchiest of tones, even though it was an automated reminder from the domain host.

I’d waffled on the idea of keeping this site over the course of the past year. There have been times where writing and publishing for public consumption has been too much. But fortunately, despite deciding for a brief period that getting away was better than being subject to ridicule, I’m now in a good place with it all. The truth is, I enjoy writing enough that it’s worth some of the nonsense that comes along with it.There are days where I feel depressed when I can’t drop everything and write–and those are the days that I know that I’m meant to keep doing this.

So, Baseball-Prose.com is going to be around for another year. And, it’s finally the year that I won the battle for the baseball-prose.com domain as well, so if you’re anti-hyphen, you can now get there either way. I’m looking forward to another year of creating content for this site (and hopefully more volume!). I’ll still be fulfilling my obligations over at SBNation.com, as well, with my weekly column there, and hopefully there will be more opportunities throughout the year, just as there have been in years past. As I’ve said before, but mean sincerely: Thanks to everyone who reads this.

But today feels good, and I’ll consider it the two-year anniversary of this incarnation of this particular site (which evolved out of other works, so it’s hard to really pin a birthday on it).

Without getting too introspective and nostalgic, I’ll just say that things have come a long way. I’ve gained confidence as a writer, even if sometimes that confidence is just knowing I’m able to sit in one spot for hours at end staring at a screen.  These days, the office is filled with boxes because I’m moving again in a few weeks, but it’s still been nice to curl up in bed in the evenings with the laptop. I’m working on a few things that I haven’t published yet, but there should be more content here in the coming weeks.

Lastly, this year of writing has a motto, one of which I’ve put on a Post-It note on my laptop and will hopefully stick (the message, not the adhesive). I had dinner with a friend this week, someone whose work I respect and has become an important person in my world. We talked about the grind of writing, of work, of relationships, and eventually settled on a conversation about gender and the assumptions of onlookers.

Two nights before, I had offered him a ride back to his place from US Cellular, because logistically it made the most sense. At dinner, I admitted that I was self-conscious about leaving the park with him, because the minds of onlookers would undoubtedly be substituting their own reality over what was simply a friend giving another a friend a ride.

The fact remains, as with most situations, we’re all dammed if we do and damned if we don’t, and that extends well-beyond the throngs of people who have nothing better to do but speculate on the sexual escapades of strangers. In what is possibly the best advice I have ever received, he told me simply, “It’s not your job to mitigate reactions.”

Perhaps the key to freedom is really just that simple. It’s worth a try, at the very least.