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Monday, October 28, 2013

Storyteller

I've always wanted to be a storyteller.

That's why I started this blog: I wanted this to be a sort of outlet for my increasingly disjointed memories and sudden rushes of fictional inspiration. There's a reason I don't just go around posting the link to my latest post on Facebook accompanied by the words "CHECK THIS OUT" or "I STARTED A BLOG, GUYSSSS." A lot of this blog is intensely personal, and as much as I try to distance myself from what I write, the more I realize that there is no writing without at least a little emotional investment.

Lately, I've been feeling that hardly anything I post on here has meaning anymore. It's all just become a bit of an online diary. Oh look! Pictures of my dog, followed by pithy comments about her psychiatric state. Oh look! A YouTube video of crazy people doing crazy things. Oh look! A paragraph about Doctor Who. Look! Look! LOOK!

As a highly visual learner (if the number of Post-Its I've got around my desk at this moment can be considered any proof), I certainly understand the merits of literal illustration, but it seems as if I've gotten a bit lazy. I'm here to write, not post.

I restarted this blog over a year ago just as I was entering my senior year in high school. Now, I'm in college, living on my own for the first time in my life. What could be more interesting than that? Every moment should be fodder for my imagination. I just need to look.

Today was my brother's birthday, and it's the first time I wasn't  been home to celebrate it with him. As my parents sent me pictures by the minute as he cut his cake and posed with The Girlfriend, grin wider than I've ever seen, I was suddenly struck by this overwhelming sense of family and belonging. I grew up with this guy, so I should know him better than anyone else on the planet, right?

That's why I've decided to take this back. Call it a homecoming. Or a home-remembering. There's nothing I know better.