When I first started writing a blog, I was sad, lonely and above all – only 20. No more a student bumbling his way through life, I remembered the feeling I had when I started tapping away at the keyboard, emptying my thoughts onto cyberspace as one would empty a bucketful of seawater back into the ocean to stop a ship (or in my case, a decrepit sampan) from rapidly sinking.
I was drowning, and even though I didn’t realize it then, writing did not just save me from suffocation (as my life had slowly become entangled in a mass of confusion) but it also awakened my senses and strengthened my craft. In the beginning, I had nary an idea of where I was going, or what I was doing, but writing about what I cared most was what made me continue to type every other day.
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| If there was only someone out there who understands me. |
The days trickled by, and as it became weeks, then months, and years, I went through every bit of my life with my blog by my side. If you would count the pages printed from all the writing, there would be hundreds enough to fill a book, with entries chronicling everything from the littlest pains to the greatest joys. When my grandmother died, I mourned in words. When I fell in love, my heart soared in sentences. The loss of friends and lovers left me speechless, where words would only fill the void, while the joys of a new job, a new home, and a new hope had me typing furiously with excitement.
My writing was where my father discovered I was gay, and smitten with a man six years older than I, who was very much the figure of maturity and the epitome of a first love. It was through my words and the stories I weaved of us that my father learned to accept my sex without prejudice or judgment. Even up until today, both he and my mother remain accepting of who I am.
It must be said that the blog also honed my skills, which actually led me to achieve my dream job as a writer, although this did take me away from my blog. Even so, my passion to write – beyond what I do professionally – continued to burn strong, which is what reminded me that once upon a time… not so long ago… I used to blog.
When I first started blogging, I was sad, lonely and 20. Almost six years have passed since then, and I have since become older and wiser, I am also no longer that sad, lonely man, but this is a story for another day.