Sunday 5 February 2012

Taking a better look...

Sitting here, I wonder. - "why do I only have two followers on this blog"?


I have 135 page views, and only two followers. Could this mean that my writing contains nothing substantial for my readers? Does it mean that the poetry, and the knowledge I sprout carries nothing for the people reading my blog?

While questioning this, I look back to where this started. As a child, I tried to keep a journal. Experiencing so much pain and confusion in life, and having no one to talk to made it important for me to have somewhere to write. However, writing felt like a vacancy. When I physically wrote everything down, I felt like it had to have a certain poise. I felt like it had to carry immense vocabulary, and intense meaning and it became too tiring. My journal and I had an on and off relationship at this point. That's when I started scrap booking. It was a means of keeping busy, and keeping my mind off alot of shit that bothered me. Also, it was so much easier to cut out an image of a woman crying, and knowing that it carried a whole other story within me. Soon after, I discovered computers, blogs and photoblogs When I discovered computers and typing, I moved to electronic entries. I created a file and named it "Diary Entries". This wasn't a very wise decision since I shared the same computer with my siblings. In my innocence and foolishness, I trusted them not to lurk into what was meant to be my sanctuary. Obviously they did. I only realised this when I discovered that my Diary would always come up in the 'recent documents', even if I hadn't opened it for weeks. That's when I stopped.

I'd stopped writing for a long time. I just didn't know where to put down what I felt. There was all this emotional turmoil inside me. It just lingered there, until one day it decided to escape through violent outbursts. Throwing things, hitting things, screaming out; all this in my own privacy, ofcourse. I couldn't let mom and dad see me lose my composure. I was the smart child. The level headed, over achiever. At 10 years old there was all this pressure to be perfect, and never disappoint my parents, and all this depression aswell. A problem had started bubbling under the surface. At this point, I learned to occupy myself to distract the thoughts, and cry at night when I was alone, in the darkness and silence of my own room, where no one would suspect a thing after a weary "Goodnight, I'm tired". I continued to scrapbook. Destroying one and the other in more violent outbursts, or for reasons such as "it isn't perfect". Perfect: at that point it meant, "Not what mommy or daddy would like", or, "not what my friends would consider cool". Don't get me wrong. My parents were great. They gave me everything, but everything couldn't make up for a real family dynamic. Everything can't make up for no family dinners, or family camping trips. They didn't realise that that was what I really wanted until I was about 14. Anyway, my sister had bought me a pink rose book. - She said, "do with it what you'd like". She bought my other sister the same one, but only in lilac. She used it for lyrics. So, I figured I'd use mine for scrapbooking. Surprisingly, I still have it. It started out with scrapbooking, and moved on to poetry... My talent and interest for poetry only came later; but eventually, I stopped. It wasn't good enough.

Years passed, I cried. Crying always brought me guilt. I'd sit there, and cry, and cry more because of the guilt. The guilt came from feeling under appreciative. I'd say to myself, "You sit here, with warm covers, food and everything you could possibly need, and you cry because home isn't what you want it to be, friends don't treat you like you'd like them to", and as I got older, "...and because you're lonely" became part of it all.
Even crying became hard, but when you're sad, there seems to be nothing beyond crying. I'd always feel better after a good session of crying. Sometimes, one session could keep me on a positive path for about a week. Maybe even 2. Thereafter, it all came crashing down, and depression swept in again.

Back to the point:
I knew there were millions of people out there who felt what I felt, and were just as confused as me; roaming the internet for answers to life. That's when I realized I could start a blog. Blog about my day, how I felt, and how I dealt with it. Post my poetry, and maybe have someone relate to it. That's when I started, "Timely Told Thoughts". - I was excited. Excited to share, and excited to mean something to someone far and distant, and perhaps help that girl, who like me, felt like jumping off a cliff, not jump. Maybe, I'd be lucky enough to get the boy who wanted to swallow a tub of drugs not swallow it, because I didn't. Maybe, the girl who pierced her skin for the thrill of the pain, would realise it wasn't such a bad thing after all. That was my mission... and I knew my mission was reaching it's aim when I realised that this page was actually getting views.. But I still asked myself, "only 2 followers"? Could it be that people are scared to accept that things are wrong, or do they feel like my writing is not deep enough? Do they feel like I only scratch the surface without cutting too deep? If that is so, they need to realise that for me, cutting to deep would hit a vain* (Note the spelling). A vain* that could lead me to spiral back into the dark burrow I'm attempting to escape. I need to stay on the surface to keep breathing, but when you analyse the surface deep enough, you'd realise that there's more to the surface than just that.

All in all, all my blogs are an escape. My journal is an escape. My poetry is an escape. I get to escape this whirlwind of a life, I get to escape the sadness, and I get to escape the depression. I get to dissolve the facade I put up in my everyday life. I get to be me...: I get to be Arlana, or Pandu. Or both at once sometimes. I get to be the person I can't show outside of these places: the journal, the poetry, the blogs. -
...therefore, even though I have only two followers, I actually need no more.. Regardless of how many people follow what I write here, I am certain I am saving one person. I'm saving myself from that edge, from those pills and from that cut; and by saving myself, I know I'm saving someone else too.

PS

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