It’s the last quarter of 2018 and I’ve finally punched the keys on my keyboard, and would have this published online in the next thirty minutes (best scenario). I’ve thought about reviving this blog many times. It’s been approximately 798 days since I last blogged. That’s two years, two months, and seven days ago.

If there’s anything that I’ve been doing differently during the last four months, that’s to just start doing something, quality (or quantity) be damned. To illustrate, I have started:

1. Regular exercise, and by ‘regular’ I mean light exercises 3 times a week.
2. Cooking. And to think I was so scared of using a steamer a year ago in Singapore. Making lunch meals for myself with oil and a stove is a milestone.
3. Baking. Lots and lots of banana bread.
4. Online coursing. I’ve never actually finished one before, and the fact that this had been paid by my employer seems to be the clincher.
5. Joining a book club. That’s right.
6. Owning plants. One of them is green and thriving, the other half-dead (but still half-alive).

I might as well add in ‘writing’ to that list, hey!

There’s also a list of other things I tried, and decided not to continue:

1. Freelancing. I did this briefly, somewhere in between my 9 months of unemployment, but my heart was not in the right place so I felt it best to move on to other things (and there are many ‘other things’). I’m still on a lookout for new projects to work on next year.
2. Attending the French Opera. I found it hard to pay attention to the singing style and story, and I dozed off while reading ‘subtitles’. I’ve decided to fund my movie club membership instead.

Or things I’ve done but unintentionally abandoned:

1. Learn Chinese. I’ve forgotten all my old lessons now.
2. Learn Japanese. I can only count 1-10.
3. Catch up with the fancy front-end stuff. React JS and all that jazz.

And then there’s a few other things I want to get into again:

1. Photography. I was never interested in the technicalities of it, but I’d like to improve my composition of shots.
2. Art, or painting of some sort. In between watching Asian dramas, chasing after book club deadlines, and ticking off exercise routines, I don’t feel confident I’d get far with this one.

Still, I feel like I’ve done quite a number of things that’s propelling me towards achieving personal goals and upgrading life skills. It probably won’t stop me from feeling like I’ve failed my ‘early’ adulthood because I don’t have a million (PhP? SGD? AUD? USD?) in my bank account, or a house, or a post-graduate degree, or awards tied to my name when I’m so close to thirty. But I do feel that I’m starting to be more forgiving about not achieving dreams I had when I was twenty. Easier said than done, but we’ll get there.

So, back to writing. Why blog (again)? Why now?

Firstly, I want to keep that ‘voice’. The voice I have in my head when I read old blog posts. It’s the voice that sounds like me, but the old me, and it’s a nostalgic me. I was re-reading an old post from a couple of years ago, young and fresh into dating, and it felt like I was listening to a different person. My experiences have changed, my perspective has evolved, and I don’t think I would’ve fully understood how different I am now without that old blog post. I would’ve forgotten what things were to me. I don’t want to forget. I want to continue recording it.

I read somewhere that human narcissism isn’t new. Today we overshare on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, while People of the Past (i.e. 1800’s) kept diaries. And they weren’t secret diaries. They were diaries that people (the example was women) would take to their friends’ houses and they share their diaries and read them together. These diaries are just everyday stuff, like who visited their house or what their family were doing, etc., etc. Doesn’t that sound pretty cool? I bet you didn’t know that either.

Writing has a different depth from videos and photos, and I want to revisit old thoughts and feelings someday.

Lastly, I want to re-engage with people who’ve still been blogging their personal lives. I don’t know many, to be honest, but I’ve revisited one and it’s inspiring to see how she’s kept at it like an artist trying to master her craft. I want to find these kindred spirits and in a non-creepy way stalk their digital lives the same way I used to comment on blogs with my online alias when I was thirteen. Not on social media, but on an online space that they’ve claimed as their own. Moving to a new country, away from friends in Singapore and Manila rekindled the interest in getting to know online personas and maybe connecting with them down the road. Maybe make new friends this way.

I was supposed to keep this short, but I got carried away, so I’ll stop here for now. This was supposed to be that first step I take on a journey to something greater. Like the practice mountain you climb before you conquer Mount Everest. Or the cookie you bake before making a cake. Or the wireframe to your website. The first potted plant you buy before starting a vegetable garden. I intended this post to be a re-introduction. Or a not-so-subtle announcement to friends and strangers that I’ll be writing in this space again so, hey, you can come read and respond because I’ll totally be tracking page views on Google Analytics.