I started writing as early as ten. I was a major geek growing up, yet couldn’t retain numbers in my head. I was atrocious at Math. I remember when I was in fifth grade, I had a Math teacher who has a habit of giving pop quizzes every other day. After all the papers were checked, she’ll have all students who scored lower than 3 out of the 5 question quiz line-up in front of the whole class. She’ll proceed to pinching us hard on the corner of our inner thighs (in tagalog: kurot sa singit punishment). Man, my singit hated that damned teacher!
I probably mentioned before that both my parents were working while I was growing up and I am pretty much left to my own devices. At sixteen, hate-filled and concerned with my growing number of zits, I decided to convey all my repressed hate, frustrations, emotions and even unsaid dreams on paper. I never looked back after that.
In my fourteen years of writing, I’ve amassed notebooks. I’ve pretty much written on all kinds: from drawing pads, diaries with built-in fragrance, the 50-peso lined notebook, my Jordi Labandas, a white hardcover from the States, a sketch pad/journal from Malaysia. And the latest one: a birthday gift from a friend.
And while I have been blogging for almost a year now, nothing beats the feeling of pen touching paper, and the scratching sound made as you write on crisp writing paper.
Nothing beats consigning your thoughts, secrets, fears and even hopes on paper and getting to read it a few years after. I chanced upon an old diary (the scented kind with matching heart lock) and made the cardinal sin of reading what I wrote when I was 18 and obsessed with a college classmate.
It was freaking awful. I nearly died laughing
It sounded as if it was a prop for an annoying teen romance series. I had the compulsion to burn it and bury any evidence of that annoying teenager, but then again the diary stayed for me for more than ten years and that alone made me re-think my plan. My only worry is for my kids to find that piece of history and conclude that their mom was delusional and maarte, at best. For now, I am considering locking all my past diaries in airtight container. Then purposely lose the key (throw it at Pasig River, maybe?)
My only problem is that a hundred years from now, someone will get to read all its contents and conclude that the person who owned these journals were pyschotic or worse, had multiple personality disorders.
LIFESTYLE WANDERLAND 