I don't know where to start with this post. I keep putting off writing because I know it won't be perfect, and I always want to put my best foot forward. But I'm going to commit to writing this, making minimal edits, and publishing it in its imperfect glory. It's been a while to say the least. Or at least, it's been a while since I've blogged regularly. To be honest with you, it's been a while since I've written anything that wasn't for school, for a club, and/or for an internship. This is terrifying because I've wanted to revive parts of my online presence for so long. I think I've made some headway on my bookish Twitter, and I'd say I'm pretty active there now. I originally separated this from that by making separate accounts--also because I want this blog to eventually take a different direction--but my bookish Twitter still brings me comfort, some level of privacy (I've asked almost all people I know "in real life" to not follow me there), and some sense of community. But every time I've attempted to revive my blogging, I've failed. I mean, if you only look at this blog, I failed to ever blog consistently.

I've come so far since I started this blog, though. This was supposed to be a place for me to document my thoughts and my experiences. I do regret never being consistent with journaling exactly because I've grown so much and have experienced so much in the past four years. In many ways I'm glad that I did all of that away from a blogging community. It's hard to now try to return, but I spent time with my peers, going out and actually experiencing things and learning and failing and picking myself back up. I'm glad that I only put out small parts of myself during the toughest times because I controlled what I shared, and I also knew I had a real, strong support system. Not having such a system was originally why I became so involved on the internet, from middle school through the end of high school.

Every time I've tried to come back to blogging, to bookstagram, to my online presence, though, I've been flooded with fear. Fear that I didn't have when I first started talking to people on forums, when I first joined Tumblr, when I first started book blogging. But I'm scared now because I built a small presence. I never had a big blog or book Twitter by any means. Even now, people hardly know who I am. But I wasn't invisible either. I have my bookish and blogging community, and I love them so much and am so grateful to still know most of them, wherever we all are in life now. But I had gone through that organic trial-and-error. I had had the space to stumble around, to figure out my own style, to build an audience. And then I left and it almost all went away. And now the online community is so different. Between trends and influencers and algorithms and all that, it's harder than ever to break (back) in. And yet I'm not starting from scratch. The content I post are maybe not perfect and will still change, but they're somewhat polished and refined and thought out and planned. I didn't want to spend all the time and effort and not see any results.

But people have started to realize how contrived and convoluted it all is. What began as something organic has become anything but. And now authenticity is valued, but there's also so much fake authenticity. The kind that is still palatable. On top of that, sometimes we've been so sucked in, so ingrained with all these algorithms and trends that we genuinely think we are being authentic and only later realize we aren't. I think that's what's been hardest for me nowadays, on top of feeling discouraged when I put out content I am proud of, only for a tiny handful of people to see it (and I am SO grateful to those few--I hope I don't come off as ungrateful). Then again, what even is authentic? Can't we have different parts of ourselves for different people? How do we determine which is more or less "real" or "authentic"? Can we be authentic and play by the rules of the algorithm (or attempt to because does anyone really understand it)? And even more so, there are people who knew high school me, and while I'm still the same in many ways, I am also very different. How much of that change do I change? How much do I still conform to my "old" self?

Add to all of this that I haven't written for pleasure, for myself in 3.5 - 4 years. It makes the question of audience and authenticity even more complicated because I don't know, maybe I've lost my voice along the way. Or at least hidden it away. Of course, there are the ways that I speak and write to my friends and family, but even that is sometimes filtered. We all think about audience, even if subconsciously or in a context where "audience" isn't the right word. We inherently know that framing matters. And almost everything I've written has been for someone else's gaze. I think the last time I wrote lyrics was the February of my freshman year of college.

Writing used to predominantly be for me. It was an outlet, one that is different from dance but no less important to me. I needed it because I never spoke the things on my mind, but I needed it to get out of my body, out of my head, and I had nowhere else to turn to but dance and writing/music. Where words failed I had dance, but otherwise, I put it down on a page, predominantly through lyric writing. I think there is so much power in words and in writing. It can also be therapeutic. But for the past few years, I've put writing (for myself) on the back burner. I've put creative writing on the back burner. And now I feel out of practice, and the perfectionist in me fears the blank page. I even fear the therapeutic aspects because I think there's a lot I'm afraid I'll unveil, that I'll have to unpack and work through. I used to trust the words I could put on a page, that I could craft into a song. And now I've lost that connection. I fear not having the words. I fear being too vulnerable in my writing. I fear writing for no one but myself. I almost fear not having that outside gaze. And it terrifies me to try to get all of that back. Because I know it'll be messy. Because I know it won't fix everything but will certainly make me cry. Because I don't know if I trust myself to be real with myself on the page anymore. Because I don't know if it's still in me, even while I know that it is.

Writing, whether for oneself or for others, is like a muscle. And mine has been out of commission for so long. But I miss it too. I long for it. So I'm trying to write now despite my fear of the blank page. I hope I'll be able to start writing creatively again, whether for myself or for others. I hope I find my way back to the magic of writing and songwriting. I hope that it's authentic to me in whatever I may think it means in that moment. I hope I find that part of myself that's gone away for a bit. I hope that it inspires me again, that I find that spark that first brought me online, that first brought me to blogging, again (although I'll need to write for my eyes only as well). I hope that once I start writing for myself again, some of the fear will start to dissipate.

I hope that this next phase will allow me to re-introduce myself. I hope I'll inspire myself and others again. And I also hope you'll see that this has maybe been me all along.

Let's see where these words will take me next.