A promise.
To myself, that is. I will blog more.
I never thought in a million light years I’d say this — but I think I actually like to write. More surprisingly (to me anyway), I think I can write.
Don’t ask me why but it’s a notion that I’ve rejected all of my life. The irony is, my entire career is dependent on it. If I’m not reading or speaking, I’m typing away. It’s at least one of the three — oftentimes, doing all at the same time. For years, I questioned how on earth I landed on this profession and more importantly, how I managed to survive — especially in the cut throat environment that I work in where you have the smartest, most ambitious and driven set of people you’ll ever encounter (not lying — we have one of the fathers of the internet at our disposal.)
I [partially] blame it on a college ex-boyfriend, who served as a long time crutch — even years after we broke up (when I say years, I’m talking nearly a decade here). How so? He helped me write my papers (OK, he actually wrote some of them for me). And when I say “helped,” I mean he’d skip his own midterms, turn in his papers late and even call in sick from work to help me finish mine. And at the time, I thought, “This is awesome!” But I realized that that kind of hand-holding really took a toll on my self confidence as a writer. More so, for a long time, I couldn’t convince myself that I might actually be a smart cookie. I became unhealthily dependent on his validation…and when he was no longer present in my life, I yearned for someone else’s…anyone’s validation.
I don’t claim to be the best writer in the world. As a matter of fact, I am far from being the next William Shakespeare. I mean heck, grammatically, I completely suck (a product of the fact that English is my second language). But I realize that writing isn’t about how many fancy words you can fit into your piece of work or how poetic you can sound when trying to get your point across. Not at all. Writing is simply a means of letting others inside your brain — finding a way to spew out the emotions, thoughts and ideas that are swirling in your head and somehow organize them into words that not only the world can understand, but also should somehow still resemble your yes, emotions, thoughts and ideas. As a matter of fact, the qualifications are simple. I say, anyone who has anything to say about anything can be a writer. Yes, it’s really that simple.
Today, I can finally admit I no longer need anyone’s approval. I created this blog so that I can have a place to store some of my greatest (ok and maybe dumbest) thoughts on paper (well in this case, a webpage.). Whether you think what I write is interesting or not, no longer matters. I’m going to write anyway.
Boy, it feels good to own it.
