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Written by: Tiffany Devol | Content Director

Category: The Jersey Devol

Published: November 24, 2015

• XFN

It’s hard to believe that I’m actually sitting here today writing this. It took years of hard work, perseverance, and teamwork, and in the end the way I feel about everything this fandom has accomplished far exceeds how I thought I would feel. I expected elation, relief, and a thrumming, unstoppable energy. I guess I didn’t expect it to feel like love and life and being part of something so profound.

This fall makes eight years since I began working for XFilesNews. They have been some of the most challenging, rewarding, and most extraordinary years of my life.

I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunities I’ve had and the people I’ve had the pleasure to know, and I’m humbled by the Philes from around the world who help make XFN a family. You are our human credentials. You are why we do what we do and you make it possible for us to help blaze a path that joins Philes from around the world. You keep us honest, you make us whole people, and we could never do this alone. I am privileged to be a part of it and I am lucky to get to work with a phenomenal team of people that put their heart and soul into every ounce of their work. I am continually amazed at their talent, their tenacity, and their willingness to do what it takes to make what we do great.

When we first began the Believe in the Future Campaign in 2008, I thought I would be proud and exhilarated once a greenlight was announced.

I had no idea.

I didn’t know that the overwhelming sense of connection would take over and cause me to sit speechless at my desk; my social media, email, and phone notifications creating a cacophony of sound around me as Philes officially found out that Don’t Give Up wasn’t just an empty mantra. I didn’t know that sitting in a ballroom at NYCC would mean literally clutching those around me as the opening credits came up and the entire room erupted into cheers and applause, 8 years of believing finally coming full circle. I didn’t know that after an evening of dinner and celebration with the best friends I’ve had in my life, that we would find our way to a tattoo parlor in the middle of the night, inking the mantra we’ve held for so long as a badge of honor.

This fandom may not always agree on what Scully’s hair color should be or if a photo of a UFO constitutes a spoiler, but we will always agree that this beautiful, global feeling, this connectivity we’ve achieved that spans continents and oceans....that this is where life happens.

So here’s to you X-Philes, and here’s to not giving up.