When I was younger, I was afraid of forgetting. And so, at the age of nine, I started to write almost every single detail of my days in a notebook, treating every single stroke of my pen as a piece of myself to be kept safe until it was time to revisit the memory lane. From childhood adventures to the inner turmoils and frustrations of an innocent child, I recorded my life as if my whole being were extended to it.
But as I grew older and started to learn how to be more or less wiser, I became more focused on the future and more resentful of the past. One sunny day of my young adult year, I threw away twenty-three journal notebooks on the fire, along with the collection of what had gone by. It was then that I decided to live more in the present and reach for the future, for I learned that there is more to life than materializing yesterdays and picking up the crumbled remains of them.
Years later, in the midst of adulthood and catching opportunities, I put down a blank page before me for some reason, and something inside me suddenly stirred. A familiarity. I stared at the paper as if I saw a ghost of my former self, whom I burned to ashes that day. The missing piece of me that was forgotten, just like those journal notes.
I want to write again and fill the page with words that will define me and this life. I want to not just tell stories about myself; I want to write down my messy thoughts, my far from perfect sentiments about the world. I want to write about the double-edged sword of fiction and metaphors. I want to write about my own shadow.
I want to write about YOU.
The Nightfall Journal 