There’s something strange happening on Planet Umamimart. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is a shift. I feel it. Do you? It’s approaching a whole new level, which is thrilling, but has me contemplating too. What is it? How did we get here? Where are we going?

WHO AM I?

Ha. A food blog existential crisis, if you will.

I started Umamimart over three years ago, and have watched it grow every single day. It’s like a child of mine, it’s so fucking weird– an extension of me, my thoughts, how I live my life.

But as a website-founder friend said to me a few weeks ago, “You have to let it grow up.” I didn’t really understand what he meant until now. Cause whatever this shift is, that’s happening on Umamimart right now, cannot be stopped. We’re too deep. It’s beyond me now, out of my control.

Must. Grow. Up.

Many Umamimart writers are going through major shifts, in one way or another, in their own personal lives. I’ve gone from working in the arts, to restaurants. Paystyle is taking a career-altering exam. Yoko just celebrated Marriage, Year One. Erin became a Jew(!). Yamahomo is… Yamahomo. Ha.

Time moves so fast these days. I wake up in the morning, just to find myself in bed again at the end of the day. Forget Umamimart: are we taking the time, in our own lives, to reflect on how far we have come? Where we are headed?

I know we’re all soooo busy, and it’s soooo self-indulgent, but let’s all try to do this in October. Día De Los Muertos is coming up– let’s meditate on, and celebrate the dead! Is that morbid? I hope not. To commemorate the dead is to commemorate the living. Umamimart is all about enjoying life to maximum capacity while we have it. Let’s not take it for granted. Nothing lasts forever.

This month I will be doing a 10-day run of the Best of Umamimart posts, to chronicle how far we have come. We’ve all grown up here, in a way. Let’s look back and laugh, sometimes cry (for that poor lobster that Yamahomo killed in the boiling pot).

Then, let’s keep moving forward.

xxk

*Top: Viva La Vida by Frida Kahlo. 1954. No one celebrates life, and death, like Frida. Courtesy of gabyR12 on Photobucket.