un début

I first started writing, seriously, when I was twelve, not long after my mom died. I kept a journal. It was a way for me to express myself and to create a dialogue with both myself and the mother I had lost. My journal wasn’t a diary containing the deep and dark secrets of a lonely teenager. Instead, it was place that I could call my own, where I would collect my thoughts, impressions of films or projects that inspired me, lists of the people that I admired, favourite quotes, photos, drawings and doodles, and the poems and other fiction that I had written. I remember being inspired most of all by Sebastian’s journal from the movie Cruel Intentions. It had a romanticism about it; despite its downright harshness it spoke the truth. I relished in the idea that when I would die, there would be this piece of me, the true me, for others’ to discover. In fact, I think that really, I regretted not having that kind of relic from my mother. And in my fear of falling to a similar fate, I felt this obligation to leave some kind trace of myself for future generations, for the daughter or the husband that I may leave behind.

Over the years, the journal entries have become scarcer and less focused. I moved on to other things. I started writing letters to friends and kindred souls. I became overwhelmed by the amount of writing I actually had to produce for school. The act of keeping a record of me became more and more trivial. Today, most of my journals sit in a box locked in a storage space miles away from here, just waiting to be rediscovered. Yet, lately, I have felt this urge to recreate that place of my own, that space that gathered all that was me, all that inspired me, all my experiences, all my thoughts. So, that’s my goal here: to give my identity form on a page.

I think the idea of writing a blog is fitting. Blogs have become the tool of the masses. They have reawakened the dream of being, one day, randomly discovered for just doing what one loves. However, the blogosphere is oversaturated. The medium may even be depassé. But I have no real expectations for what this may become. It is simply the urge to create that drives me. It is to give myself over to something other than myself. It is the urge to give my thoughts concrete footing to stand on. It has always been my opinion that once a thought is written it suddenly becomes more real. I need to give the clutter in my head some kind of shape. Yet, I have to be honest, part of the reason why, this time, I am taking my mind online is the idea of it being public. I like the fact that others may read my words and relate. I hope that they might even find solace here, realizing that they are not alone.