The journey – Melissa Justine

Over the years I have talked about blogging an awful lot. I have talked about how it all started. How it all changed. and most notably how I wanted it to be. I always had this itch, the feeling that it wasn’t good enough. That I could and should be better. That I wanted all of it to be just right. In a way, when I started my blog, blogging was on its way out. Maybe somehow it felt comforting. No one will read all of this anyway. No one will care, this is not really a legacy, this is not my career. This is my hobby, this is combining what I love to do. There was no pressure, not for me not for anyone. My blog was my secret. This feeling of having this small part of the internet for me alone left me. People I know would comment on my blog, my family would say posts were too long or too short. Along with this came devastating doubt. The volume of which I have only now began to realize. It is not in any way that people explicitly made me feel this way. Along the journey, it stopped being me and my computer. In a sense, it is funny, as my posts are much better now, but I feel less proud of them.

I never really had ‘proper’ hobbies. Or at least being young that is how it felt like. I loved curling my hair, I loved talking about a new blush I got. I enjoyed going to the movies and reading books. I was one of those girls that had so much time on her hands, even throughout the school year. It all came so easily to me but there was this hunger in me to explore, to learn and to talk, to share. I always was the odd duck out. No one made me feel that way but when I started high school it felt as if no one liked all the things I liked. I felt that there were so many aspects and facets to me as a person that it hardly fit. In a way, I think I felt that I had to only like certain things specifically to be able to love them deeply. Over the years I learned this wasn’t true.

My personality who I am in the deepest fibers of my being is someone that loves widely but also deeply. I get strength, and energy from doing a lot of different things.

Sometimes it feels as if I am fluttering all over the place. I thought that when you get older you find your thing and that you can stick with that. For me, this never happened. I cannot put all my focus on something for a long time, I get bored. I have this deep-rooted need for something new, something exciting and stimulating. It might stem from being utterly bored in school but not having the cognitive abilities to tell anyone about it. Which sounds a bit weird, when I did not understand something the teacher would either not explain again or explain it in the same way. When I was six my rapport cards said I should stop asking so many questions. I think knowing what I know now is that I needed things to be explained very deeply and thoroughly. I either wanted to understand and do it right or not do it at all. Failing is not so hard when you do not try. How it happened I don’t know but this blog became about failing. I felt the posts lacking, I felt it was not good enough.

When I started learning English, I was quite old at that. I started with reading and then with writing. I never talked in English though, I felt awkward. Sometimes it felt weird to say certain phrases or words because others would say them differently from me.

Even in tv-shows it never sounded the way I did. I could not really put my finger on what the difference was but it felt strange.

My natural speaking speed is very fast, meaning I can say a lot of words in a very little amount of time. In English, at first, when I spoke it felt as if my mouth walked away from me. I don’t know how I understand this language, how all of this came to be. I cannot translate words or sentences without feeling like I did when I was ten. When my parents would talk in English and I could not grasp what they were saying. It always felt just a bit out of reach. And then when the switch came, it was as if all puzzle pieces fell into place and I could just speak. The thing is, when I was forced to speak English. I gained the confidence to understand and accept that my speaking voice was fine. I learned a language by just doing it, I learned to read and then I could write, now my writing is not the best. My spelling is atrocious and I know it. For me, the language and my road towards understanding it is such a massive part of who I am. I didn’t read books in English because I did not like reading in Dutch. I did not watch films in English because it was not dubbed over. I do all of those things because if I don’t, I miss it. Half of the time I think in English, I work through my problems in English. It made me feel comfortable, I hardly ever talked in English so talking to you made me feel complete. I understand that this seems a bit dramatic, but I nothing if not hyperbole. I loved my blog but this journey.. it changed how I feel about it.

The thing though, I love writing. When I was little I would write whole notebooks full.. My brain would and still does make up all sorts of stories in my mind. some people think in images or vivid colours. I think in words and feelings. The only visual thing I enjoy is taking photos. So, when I started blogging I did it for myself. There were girls that loved books, and girls that loved make-up there were also girls that enjoyed clothes. But I ? I just love it all. I loved reading, and writing, I loved English. I loved taking photos and talking about products. I loved taking a small part of the internet and making it my own. When I wrote there was no outside source telling me what to think or what to feel. At sixteen I didn’t have a voice in my head telling me to be a certain way. I was just a girl making the dream I had at twelve come true. I never really cared for people to read it and honestly, I still don’t. In a way, it feels as if no one does anyway. Maybe that idea is what keeps me going. I could look at the analytics. I could promote myself a lot. If I am honest though, that is not who I am. It is not what I want it to be.

I do it for myself because I love it.

Or at least that is what was always the case. I would write about a beauty product because I wanted to share it. I loved taking product photos so I made a post. I went to the movies and thought it was nice so I chatted all about it. Along the way, I felt this immense pressure within myself to do better, to be better. In so many ways I became better because I tried. As conceded as it might sound, I take great photos. No, actually I take bloody amazing photos and I usually get it in a take or two. Which I would not have known were it not for this blog. The thing is though,

I changed over the years, I grew up.

Life was well, just that life and I had to live it. I went and had the highest peaks but also the most awful lows. For a while now, even though I love the writing, I love the reviews. I have lost some of my touch. I was reading and really thinking back to how I started and why. I do not take the time to do what I love and when I do it doesn’t feel right. Somewhere I picked up this feeling of all of this needing to mean something which makes me anxious. As I said. I love writing, and I always have. For years upon years, I have wanted to write a book. I actually started several times. My head is always full of stories and ideas. I write things down but it never goes anywhere because it feels like such a big thing to do. When I started this blog the world was my oyster. I was reaching for the stars. I grabbed life with both hands. Nothing mattered because it was me and my computer against all of it. This was my place to let it all come together.

Over the past months, I have not been feeling the best, I am unsure where this comes from or how to change it. But I have this feeling of my throat being restricted. Of the whole weight of all my decisions I ever made on my shoulders.

I never meant for this to be so sad, it is pure though. It is what my heart feels. Reading through it now, I feels as if this should be goodbye. However, it is not, not yet. We are taking a different train track, we are not going back but we are not going to go forward the way we have been. For years, I decided against talking about certain things as I felt it improper for a young lady to talk about certain topics. I felt I was not wise enough to give tips about life, about the world. The thing is, if I am doing this for myself. Why would it matter? At the end of the day, I felt so much fear along the way. Fear of not being good enough and not doing this in a way that I should. Here is the thing about hobbies though, it does not have to be perfect, it just has to be enjoyable. It’s time to get onto a new track, to go further, to go with bliss. So to having fun. See you Sunday.