My strange relationship with writing

"You're good with words", "You have so much energy to write", "You're so articulate in writing"… Most of the time not really, but when I do, I go crazy (maybe because it's the only chance I can feel things)

I grew up in a household where we have to move places to places every now and then. That means I transferred schools every year or two (I've got into 4 schools in elementary alone, 3 for junior high, and I've went somewhere else for my seniors), and that may have done something to my psyche as adjusting to a new environment all of a sudden and starting over to get along in a social setting is an exhausting task, especially for an elementary schooler at the time.

It didn't matter to me as a kid, As I get older, being "the transferee" kid all the time took a toll on me. It's hard to get into friendship circles as everyone have known and bonded with each other already. This was around the time social media is not yet a thing, and I'm literally a too young to have my own phone, so I really have no means to be in touch with old friends whenever I stepped in a new school.

Looking at it now, this may have been somewhat a significant force for me being asocial and always isolated from people. The connections I made were a bit short-term and I can't do or haven't done long-term, deeper friendships that have memorized me to the point that I can make plans with them and just go wild in speaking my mind around them, so now it left me not knowing how to do such. There's also the constant overthinking that they might have been judging me as the new person around.

Anyway, it was 4th grade when I was introduced to 2 pivotal things (one can say, my awakenings); Poem writing and Formal theme books. There was a time where my English and Filipino teachers would introduce the lesson of poems and asked us to make our own poems as an activity. I remembered writing a poem about a tree or a garden (some nature-themed thing) for English, and about my estranged father in Filipino. As you can say, I took it like a natural pro. Thinking about it now, I can't get into the mind of that fourth-grader, but she probably thought it was fun thinking about the idea and finding the right words to put in. Life was simple back then.

Then, we got introduced to essays, letters, stories, and any other long-form written accounts. I am a lazy reader but for some reason I got very hooked into them; the storytelling, the random knowledge I get, the way that it gets me thinking. I don't know why but for some reason I grew up to like my language, reading, and writing classes (especially English), thanks to those bulky textbooks that were also my companion.

Around that time, we also started to get more essay-writing activities. Since I'm into those essays on textbooks, I get to understand how to write from how those were written, hence making those activities elaborate for me. As I've already established, I'm always the "alone kid", and I barely talk or make friends. That way, writing has become a tool or a thing for me to write what's in my mind, just like the essays I read on textbooks. It's like talking nonstop, but your listener is only a piece of paper.

I've also became very observant, knowledgeable, and fond of getting random information because of this. Aside from only saying that a ball is under the table, I also get to think about why and how it impacted the other things related to it, and man sometimes I get to be creative with it. It's probably because it was broken from when they played in the morning and they would need to buy another one, something like that. I like fun facts and some logical reasonings too. It also taught me to be creative, appreciative, and take things to be more interesting.

Thinking may not like me that much but I really like to think about random stuff. Other than my English and Filipino subjects, I also grew likings with History, Science, Arts, and some Math (just the concepts, observations, experimental stuff, and logical explanations though, I'm not good with memorization, numbers, dates, formulas, and a lot of technical things). This may make me come off as a genius, I'm far from that, I'm just a brainy kid and I have a problem with memory and focus.

Now, I really wish that formal theme books are still a thing in today's elementary kids, because boy oh boy, for some reason I look forward to those days. We get to write some essays on there, teachers rate and provide revisions, and we'll write a revised version for it on the next page. It can be any topic that our teacher assigned to us; our family, my dream profession, the president's speech, a movie I watched, climate change, nature, a book I read, being a smart voter, a letter to a friend, anything. It really helps you think and run wild with your thoughts; you can also brag on what else do you know about the topic. After every school year, those things were returned to us and there were so many blank pages, which I did used as for writing letters for either my estranged father or an imaginary friend (Just wait until I get into journaling, diaries, and personal blogging).

It was 5th grade when I got into diaries and journaling as part of our values education which was some sort of a personality development activity. I loved it since it was more on what I feel, which is very uplifting and personal to me, so I got more into it. I also got into the school publication around this time, and it was pretty cool. I like to write features and news. I get to compete for both, but I win better places in newswriting most of the time (which was strange because I liked features more since it leaves more space for creativity, but feature writers really outnumbers news writers so the competition was tougher in there), so I leaned into newswriting competitions all throughout, and occasionally with features contributions to the paper. (Fun fact: in 8th grade, I get to contribute a literary story to our campus paper. It was about switching identities to understand each other's situation, I don't have the copy or the details anymore, but it was cool seeing what I wrote in there)

It was high school when I discovered social media, later on blogging, and let me tell you it was a whole new world of self-expression. I've made several blog stuffs back then and ended up deleting those because of random breakdowns to the point that nothing has survived (It was a cycle that I've done several times before stopping that behavior today). I've also had a Wattpad writer phase and tried to get on stories as well. Essay and written activities have lessened but I get to thrive and be a little happy whenever there are any, and as expected I get good grades. I still have the smart average kid and "good in English" reputation, which is very much helped me navigate high school quite okay academic-wise. I joined school publication only for 8th grade I competed and went places but quit the next year because I lose interest. I got 3rd in an impromptu speaking contest in my 10th grade as well.

Fast forward to now, I am working as a Virtual Assistant, writing blog content, web things, and social media captions have become a significant part of my work. I communicate in English for work all the time, so my communication skills really come in handy. I used to take a literature program for college but later on switched to a communication program which for some reason I liked more because it's more challenging (for me and my skillset in a good way) and there are other things that I can explore other than writing. I also rekindled that old love for personal blogging and journaling, thanks to my struggles with anxiety, self-image, and opening up to people. At this point, I find comfort and healing in talking to a paper or in my keyboard, venting and confessing what I think and feel, which helps in letting it out and having a clearer mental space.

For now, I can say that my strengths as a writer are writing about topics that I know and love, poems, creative writing, essays, journals, and blogs. I'm not very big on journalism, formal, academic, professional and technical kinds of writing but I can still do it when I have to, but I'm really looking forward to improving, especially being in a program that utilizes more of those. I tried to put my foot in more literary stuff but I'm still working on it (I have very short patience and fast imagination I try to chase). Writer’s block is also a thing to deal with, but all is well, I guess.