Ever since I disabled everything related to newsletter signups and memberships, Ghost has been a pleasure to work with. The editor is as good or better than any. It's fast, self-hosting feels good, and it's free (aside from hosting fees). Creating fancy photo galleries couldn't be easier. I finally found a theme that doesn't feel pleadingly self-promotional.

And yet, after years of static, local, markdown-based blogging tools, putting stuff into Ghost makes me twitchy. With every new post, I feel like I'm painting myself into a corner. The only export option is a JSON file, which people keep telling me is better, but then I can never find a utility for working with them the way I want to. I'm terrible at tweaking Ghost's templates, but can't resist trying. Then after I do that, updates to the original theme (which I paid $149 for) need to be selectively applied. And there's no way I'm setting up a local dev environment.

I should just let it go, roll with the way Ghost works, and move forward. Don't worry about some hypothetical future migration. Cross that bridge later. But I don't know if I can do that. Even though I'm self-hosting, I don't feel in control. It doesn't feel like mine. I kind of want my blog to feel more like mine, you know? My Kirby blog is still on deck.