thoughts on blogging for 8 years

While I was reading blog posts yesterday, I came across a post from a blogger who had completed 3 years of blogging and was talking about what she learnt in those 3 years. It made me realize that I’ve been blogging for almost 8 years. 8 years!

i started blogging/writing when i was in my last year of high school. i’ve been writing through some of the most important years of my life. my high school graduation, my entire college years, my first years working, and through the pandemic. while i have not recorded everything, writing is always an act of documentation.

sometimes i wrote about my life, the big events, family, and my friendships. a lot of the times, i skirted around personal topics and spoke about my hobbies instead. but through it all, i documented myself.

my blog shows what i was interested in at any point of time, how i was feeling, what impacted me the most, and what i was drawn towards. it shows my growth arc.

i’m 24 years old so that means that i’ve been writing actively for one third of my life. and what a part of life it’s been.

writing has always been a big part of me. there’s a clip of me when i was around 5 where my mom was forcing me to sing for the video (because singing Indian classical music is a thing in my mom’s side of the family) and after a bit, i told her “okay you sing now” and i started writing something in a notebook. i don’t know what i even had to write!

in 6th grade, i got a diary for the first time and started journalling about my days and even my imaginary stories. i have several notebooks of my journalling from 6th to 10th grades. then i stopped writing for about 2 years to focus on school and picked it up again in the form of blogging.

my blog is, in a way, a body of my life’s work. it shows the best (and some of the worst) parts of me. it has content through the years when i bloomed and became the person i am today.

i am very different from how i used to be in 12th grade. the changes and the influences/causes are documented in the blog.

as i realized all of this yesterday, i also realized that my writing has drastically reduced this year. it might be due to work picking up pace with more in-office days, or it might be because i’m becoming a more social person with more outgoing plans.

i used to write thousands of words every week—whether on my blog, newsletter, journal, or somewhere else. now, i barely write that much in a month.

so, this is an intention to pick it back. writing is a big part of me and i don’t want to lose it. years later, i don’t want to be nostalgic about how “i used to write so much.” i want to still be writing. i want to still figure things out, share my obsessions, and make connections through writing.

in a couple of years, i want to say that i’ve been actively writing and blogging for 10 years. and with the way time flies, we’ll be there in no time. i just have to add writing back into my routine.