When you say before.. I have to ask, when did you first join Medium? I joined about a year or so ago, give or take.

These things were definitely happening then, I have come to realize.

But I wasn’t immersed enough in the community to realize it.

So, when you say you want to go back to the way it was before, I wonder if what you really mean ( but don’t realize), is that you want to go back to the way YOU were before…you know, before you knew.

And that won’t happen. I see that now. The longer I am here the more my words will be subjected to criticism, both constructive and destructive. The more people I will cross paths with, both supportive and damaging.

It is the nature of community. And it is the good with the bad.

❤

(Of course if you are back after a long absence and restarting anew, and I took your experience totally wrong, then never mind lol)