• 1
    I was never born with paper and pen in my hands. I was not that lucky. I was never born with this unstoppable ideas in mind. All I know was that I was born, and remember growing up. And I was introduced into this peculiar, queer strange world. That made me think, was I born queer too?



    2
    I never knew when I began falling in love with paper and pen. But I have to tell you, the first few times I met paper and pen, I hated it so much that I almost cursed studying. But I knew then, paper and pen is as vital as learning.



    3
    My cursive penmanship is bad. My handwriting can never win any award, nor can it impress anyone, not even a first grader. (Laugh inserted here) Back when I was young, I wanted to copy my mother's handwriting, 'cause for me her graceful loops, firm dots and stern lines seem all majestic, or maybe because that's the only handwriting that I saw. She was my first standard. I guess, she'll always be.



    4
    Back at school, I adore nature. I would skip recess and munch on the scenic view of the eastside mountains and the plunging valley where our city is cradled, and how the rivers breaks through it nonchalantly. At that moment, all I do is stare. Then I wonder, how on earth can I possibly justify such beauty if I have to put it in writing?



    5
    Did I say I like books?



    6
    My adoration for books doesn't began with a resounding joy. Books, for me, came to be a hidden treasure, I have found, not by accident, but by force. That was when my literature teacher obliged her twelve-year old students to submit two book reports per week. Some obeyed her without having any benefit of actually reading a book. Some went into the trouble of actually reading more than two books and submit as much book reports in a week. I didn't belong to those extremes. I just did what my teacher said, I submit a book report of out a book I read. And it was a surprise to me--that I actually enjoyed reading a book or two. It's like I'm talking to someone, not from my age and space. I'm talking to many geniuses and great storytellers of all time, through paper and pen. Writing about the experience came strangely easy.



    7
    It doesn't occur to me that I'd became a bookworm. My mates are literal bookworms, they'd let their books rot without even taking time to read beyond it. But it's queer, I value a book like a person, who can teach me about himself and the world, and life and everything else, and even more.



    8
    Then I dreamt of becoming a person. A person, whom someone else can read and know, though paper and pen.



    9
    So I began journalling. Write as much about anything. As much as I live.



    10
    I write at my journal to my heart's content. And I live as much as I write. Like twin best friends, writing and reading became my constant companion. Day in. Day out.



    11
    My young life has been filled with so much torment both to heart and spirit. My journal has been my faithful witness. If every discouraging story I've written is a stab to the paper, my journal must have not survived the first few attacks, 'cause the moment I start to write, my cruelty would never stop. And I have to put it into writing no matter what.



    12
    To date, I've managed to torture six journals And still currently, about to finish the last few pages of another one.



    13
    I realized a writer at heart will forever be a writer at heart.



    14
    Days, years passed. Words can't stop. Ideas keep popping out. I still write. I always write. I just can't stop.



    15
    I was enticed by short stories before so I pursue it with all my heart. I write my own crazy short stories--out of boredom, out of joy, out of experience, out of a challenge, out of interest, but mostly, out of my own desire to tell something of myself, depicting a little portion of myself in some characters I create. Short stories captivated me. Even now, it does.



    16
    Poetry is a different thing. This is the greatest romancer. How alluring is the voice of its rhyme. How strong and melting is the harmony of every line. How magnificent is the structure and tone I hear all in every piece. Each one with different music, intrinsic to it. Each has their own story to tell and music to play. Poetry is the shortest way to my heart, I have to admit. I fall in love with poetry right there and then, almost instantly.



    17
    I dreamt of becoming a writer. I desired to become a writer.



    18
    Have I said I wouldn't take creative writing as my course in college?



    19
    I was haughtily, foolishly blinded when I said that. I was thinking I don't want to do it as my job, 'cause I felt like I would lose wonder of it all. So I enjoyed writing at days when I can do the things I love, mostly during summer and holidays. I became selfish against myself.



    20
    My sister shattered my reason and my selfish self. Years after I've made up my mind, and now that I've taken a different path in college, far from my first love, creative writing.. she told me I should've pursued creative writing if that's what I wanted to do all my life. If that's the case, it will no longer become just like a job, viewed as a burden and means of earning, but as a splendid career of getting paid for doing what I always love doing. Heck! She should've said that earlier when I was stupid to give up on my first love. I know it's my fault, and I've paid for it gravely. All because I gave up on my love for creative writing that easily.



    21
    At that time, I felt like an unfaithful lover to writing. I would write only when circumstances bid it, when I've been dreaming of becoming a writer at heart. It's like I would only love a person when it's easy to, but when it has become difficult, complicated and unreasonable, I abandon my love and come back when it's fine. And that's definitely not love.



    22
    I felt like I don't deserve to become a writer.



    23
    But I can't live a life like that. I have to redeem my first love. I have to write, lest I die out of misery for fooling myself, for not wanting what I've always loved all my life. My life without writing has been an unexpressed, unreflected life, meaningless and almost not worth living. So I ammended my ways and began to write again. In bad days. In good days. In ordinary days. In extraordinary days. In simple days. In simple ways I can.



    24
    I get married to it. I won my first love back. And I write again.



    25
    And I bear fruits that are beyond me. When I've done a written piece, I felt like a new 'me' has been born and has been written and told. Have you ever experienced the strange joy of creating something wonderful that you feel so damn proud in your secret self, that you'd go far for it so the world can see its beauty and wonder? That's the magical experience of writing, for me.



    26
    But it's more than magic. It's life. Like a journey deserves a journal, so life deserves to be shared as well, be it in writing or in some other forms of making people realize how strangely beautiful your life has been.



    27
    I'd like to make my point: I'll continue to live. I'll continue to write. In that way, I'll get to live on forever. Like in my young days, when I spoke with the great geniuses of all time through books, I want to speak to people in my simple ways, through my written works. And speak to them of how they can live and inspire other as well.



    28
    And at the moment when I am done, that will be your time to read. Read me.