How hard was it for you to accept EP was gone forever?

I don't know if you'd call it grieving , at one point there was rumors, I then had medical issues.

and when I got back to it the site was down, honestly took me about a year before I craved it enough to look for alternative sites

I didn'ty miss it. I had abandoned it some time before it closed, though of course I could not have known that would happen.

Nor why - still don't.