Freshly Pressed Acceptance Speech – Round 3

I woke up this morning after about six hours of sleep and immediately turned on my phone wiped away some drool. Then I turned on my phone. 76 new emails were loading, dozens more would follow a few minutes later. That’s when I knew it wasn’t a dream.

For the third time in less than two years, one of my blog posts has been Freshly Pressed. This time, it is Growing Up Millennial.

To say I am shocked, would be an understatement. To say I am overwhelmed, would be an even bigger one.

At 4:03PM Monday afternoon I looked at my stats page and realized someone had accessed my blog via a referral from Twitter. I thought it was strange. I don’t share my posts on Twitter. I did a quick, savvy search on Twitter and found the Freshly Pressed account.

There it was. A quote from my post and a link to my blog.

I would’ve fallen over, but I was sitting in a chair that had arm rests. Thank goodness. I thought I was dreaming. I thought I was hallucinating. I thought it was a joke. My heart beat quickened. Someone get a stethoscope!

I made a note on my phone and wrote down some thoughts because I knew if this was real, I would be writing a post like this very shortly. Also, I wanted the Doctor’s to know what was wrong with me if something happened.

This is what I wrote at the time:

-Freshly Pressed around 4:05PM.
-Feels like I’m going to throw up my last seven meals, but other than that I’m fine.
-Was at 93 likes before an earthquake hit my post.
-5:27PM: Is it over yet?
-Overwhelmed
-Gonna celebrate by putting a DVD in and binge watching The Killing. Only fitting.
-This is the weirdest dream ever.

This was the third time I was being Freshly Pressed, but I still had the same reaction as if it was the first time. Like I said, I felt like I was going to throw up my last seven meals.

Many people think “fame” – I don’t even know if I would call this fame – is something they would love. I would call being Freshly Pressed a “momentary spotlight”. It won’t last forever, and that’s perfectly fine with me. I’m freaking out over a few hundred email notifications, meanwhile celebrities on Twitter get thousands of tweets directed at them every day – many of them negative.

What made this Freshly Pressed experience unique was there was no email to warn me. The first two times, I received an email from a WordPress editor telling me what was going to happen. Then about two days went by before it was on the Freshly Pressed page.

This time, no email. I found out on my own through social media. How ironic, right? For a post about Millennials.

In the last 24 hours I’ve received hundreds of emails telling me someone has followed my blog, reblogged my post, or commented on it. I wish I was exaggerating when I said “hundreds.”

My notifications have been a clogged toilet for the last 24 hours. Nothing is going down. Sorry for the visual, that’s the best I could come up with!

I’m so lucky. I don’t know how this happened to me again. There are so many great bloggers and great posts that I read every single day that deserve this honour just as much, if not more than I do.

I have no tips on how to be Freshly Pressed. WordPress may give you tips, but I can’t.

Just speak from your heart so your mind doesn’t have to and good things will happen.

I’ve written 162 posts, three of them stand out. They were the three that were Freshly Pressed. However, they stood out to me the second I hit “Publish” – before I knew they would be featured. They felt different.

Like a quarterback throwing a perfect pass, those posts felt good right out of my hand. As soon as I released them, they felt right. I don’t know how to explain it. A sixth sense took over.

I just want to thank everyone who has read Growing Up Millennial. Thank you for your comments and nice words. I truly appreciate it.

I also want to thank the WordPress editors for selecting my post. There are not enough “Thank You’s” I can send your way, even though I’m Canadian and we say it all the time. I am proud to have the Freshly Pressed badge on my site.

I also want to thank my followers who were with me before my latest post was featured. I don’t know what to call you. Family? Friends? A talking picture? A person on the other side of the world? Someone I’ll never meet? All of the above seems appropriate.

You’re all so kind and the pleasure is mine to read your blogs and learn about who you are and what your life is like in your corner of the world.

In my post I said “Technology brought the world closer together, while simultaneously pulling as apart.” Thanks to technology, WordPress has brought us closer together. I’m forever grateful.

I’m still overwhelmed and still feel like throwing up previous meals, but it’s worth it. This is amazing, and I have all of you to thank for it.

Now then, we can’t celebrate properly without pizza and cake, so wash your hands and let’s dig in!