A.K.A. JOSEPHINE

    Is there a thing you can never leave your house without? Something you always need to carry. For me it's a pen. I always have something to write. Getting something to write on is easy. I keep a lot of receipts in my bag and pocket, napkin papers from restaurants and coffee shops. But asking someone for a pen when you are inside the bus is not the easiest thing. (Yes, I also use my note app on my phone) 

 

    I don't really know when it started, I just felt the desire to write my thoughts and emotions. This desire was probably one of the reasons why I ended up majoring in English. Reading poems, crying over theatre acts, feeling the intensity of the narratives, pondering parables and writing my own reflection gives a different kind of freedom. The English language is not just about perfecting your grammar. I bet I should tell that to myself more often. 

 

    My earliest memory writing a journal was in 6th grade. That journal project still exists, and has few entries in it. Oh boy, I laugh a lot reading it. It’s very cringe-y! Moving forward to my high school years when I really started keeping a journal, I always write my thoughts and emotions at the moment, my prayers, my devotions. Of course, as time passed by and as I got used into writing, I also made some progress. I knew I improved (and hopefully continuously improving) when one of my classmates in high school told me I should pursue writing after she read some entries in my journal. I was 15-year-old at the time. I believe what she meant was more of an informal blog-writing rather than proper journalism, to which I definitely agree. 

    Soon enough, my “emotions” in a particular season in my teenage years became the theme of almost all my writings. A fragile and innocent heart burst it’s longings and confusions through poems of love. I penned those writings behind the name Josephine (sounds familiar?) 

    When we moved to Canada, I felt like I lost a lot of things (a lot of me), but not the freedom and peace in writing. At that point, it was more of jotting down questions and short notes for myself. I was crawling myself into reading my bible and writing my devotions according to the truth. And that was the hardest part because it was what my daily writing was all about before moving to Canada. It was a part of me. You're probably getting curious about what really happened that time. I grew a lot during that season, by God’s grace. Maybe I’ll try to share it next time. 

    Year 2019 came and I finally decided to write short contents about coffee, life and the city. Spoiler: it did not happen. I have this Instagram account called @mermaidwanders which I initially created as a photo dump account when I was doing my internship in Panama in 2018. I archived all the uploaded photos on that account and decided to start posting photos of every coffee shop I visited. I’ve also thought of filming my coffee shop exploration but it was really awkward so I just gave up and settled on drinking coffee in peace. 

    Despite all the delays, here I am writing the last part of my second entry at 1:07AM. Yes, it’s that time again. I guess this is really just the time my mind allows me to spit out the words to write. Well, this is it. My little journey in writing. I want to say that I would really love to hear a little journey of yours. Whether you're still in the beginning, perhaps you've already come a long way, or maybe the journey ended and you realized that there’s a different path you want to walk on. Let’s hear it. There’s  probably a comment section somewhere down there. Haha. I’ll end it here. I hope you enjoy this. I did.

Warmly, 

V

P.S. Short content is a scam.