Candid thoughts | My Journey with writing….

Gosh I missed writing.

I know you are probably wondering what I am on about, but what I mean in fact is writing out my thoughts and not chronicling past events. I remember the early days of me blogging, it used to be just pages of me offloading my thoughts, my feelings and my dreams onto the internet and feeling some form of liberation from it. That’s the writing I miss. Funny thing about this is I feel I have written these thoughts a few times , expressing it in different words but always reaching the same conclusion! I wonder, do other writers feel this way?

When I started blogging, I didn’t realise that deep within me was a girl who had a passion to tell stories of herself and that of others. A person who likes to ask why and not just accept things as it is. I would have never taken the courage to choose to study journalism if it wasn’t for my first blog, Girl Meets World. If you have been reading since those days, I appreciate you, please say hello. 

I remember the first interview I ever did—It was for a freelance job I was doing at the time which I landed on a whim, way before Journalism. I had packed my notebook and was armed with questions dressed in my semi formal wear trying to be all professional—do you get the picture?

I walked from the station to a small restaurant somewhere on Tottenham court road—which is no more— all nerves but trying to be brave. My subject for the day was a lovely Korean Ahjumma who owned a restaurant known as Seoul Bakery, a restaurant that had walls filled with stories and dreams and feelings just like mine. The place had been a happy place for fans of Korean pop music and food for over a decade and it was about to be bulldozed off. There were plans to expand Tottenham Court road station and so all the buildings there had to go.

I met this lady and within the first minute she had managed to have me cracking up and melting the nerves away. We spoke about london in the 90s, music, food and culture and it was some of the best minutes of my life. Fast forward a few months later, I took my family to watch a play and I got a chance to conduct my second interview with the director of the theatre troupe, and my parents were so proud of me.

This was some of the deciding factors as to how I ended up today being a graduate of Journalism.

This night, thoughts of how I have almost come full circle—cos I don’t feel it has ended quite yet—kept coming to me. The nostalgic feeling sparked a light in me that I though was extinguishing. And so yes I missed writing.

This blog has been a bit quiet with my thoughts because even though my mind is like a hamster on a wheel churning ideas and opinions on what is happening around the world today, I have found it very hard to put my thoughts into words. And as someone who has a lot of those thoughts, I ended up with a jaded feeling of loss. I grieved inwards and try as I did to find a cure, the rabbit hole kept getting deeper until I was at a point where all the doors leading out didn’t fit and there was no magic cookie or potion to solve the dilemma -Alice you lucky girl.

So you can imagine my delight when I opened a new page on my blog and words just flowed from my fingers, rushing and rushing to be heard.

Lately in the news I have been seeing #MeToo and the unravelling of the sexual assault virus that has sunk its roots deep within our societies, hidden in places where light never shone. However as horrifying as it is to hear of the things that were done to victims—Survivors, it is also reassuring to see that the world is embracing the survivors and showing them it is okay, it wasn’t their fault and the people who did to them whatever it was, shall face their crimes. #Metoo has transcended borders and opened up the can of worms not just in hollywood or America, but other countries as well. 

On a different social spectrum, a recent death of a Korean Pop superstar,Kim Jonghyun, also brought to the limelight the problem of suicide and how societal expectations of people can lead to irreversible consequences. To live in a world that is constantly telling you or showing you ways that you do not live up to a standard, or having people in close radius to you always pointing out things you are doing wrong rather than celebrating things you do right, can be a toxic environment to live in. #RIPKJH

Add that to a YouTuber putting up a video a few weeks ago making jokes about suicide which caused an uproar in the community. It opened up the conversation of how far is too far when it comes to sharing content on social media platforms and can you justify doing certain things such as this, just to get views? There are people out there that are really struggling to live everyday and they have difficulty controlling their thoughts, and to see someone make fun of a serious issue in such a way put a sick feeling to my stomach. He had a responsibility I felt to his viewers, especially because a lot of them are at impressionable ages, to be considerate of what he puts out there.

I say all this to say that it is our responsibility I feel as a global society to ‘See Something, Say Something’, to ask our neighbours, family and friends, or even a stranger if they are okay and check up on them if we sense something is wrong. And to try to provide positive energy and outlook to people in order to avoid putting people in toxic situations. I think also one of the biggest takeaways is for us, to not assume what we know to be the absolute truth!

These are some of the thoughts I wanted to share tonight. Thank you for reading through and you are welcome to share your thoughts below. 

Have a good week & “Be kind to one another”!