reminiscence and a public service announcement
“The first time I wrote, truly—to reach people—it was on Medium," I say as the mic attached to my shirt starts to pulse like an extra heart. I glare hard into the camera as though hoping it will dissolve the smoke of a question that my answer has produced.
Was that the truth?
My interviewer on the other side of the camera does not notice this conflict in my eyes so, I push it aside.
According to my memories, it is true. Some part of me feels like there may have been something before that. But as far as I can remember, everytime I have tried to trace my writing journey — to where it became bigger than myself — it has always brought me back to this place. This place that started with a gentle nudge, a funny yet awfully written story, fifty claps; this place that has become something bigger than me.
Here, I braved storms and broke walls and I got the reward of seeing people do the same in response. Even now as I write this, I feel a flutter in my heart, thinking of the warmth I have created and received here.
Yet, more.
I want something bigger still, something more tangible, something that feels even more mine—a newsletter. I mentioned it before. I mentioned it even before that and I think it’s time to simply stop mentioning.
Of course, I’m terrified—that my words will never speak to anyone, that I’ll run out of things to write about and say all the wrong things, but I’m not terrified enough to not start. After all, I was frozen solid with fear and jittery with anxiety when I started this, too.
Yet, here I am.
Thanks to you, every single person who clapped, commented, added to a list, opened up, broke this invisible wall that the online world creates. Even if you have so much as sighed wistfully at a line I wrote here, know that you made this — the current me, too — happen.
I have a lot of things that feel like obstacles—I can’t think of a name, I worry about the content, I may not be found. I worry about a possible lack of originality, that everything I come up with will simply be a mosaic of all the newsletters I’ve religiously consumed in the past months. But, none of these are misgivings about whether or not I will begin, but rather about how.
I will publish my first post on my twentieth because I’m a slut for sentimentality. I imagine it will be a one/two-liner just to ascertain that I have created a space and will do something with it soon.
I have decided to post each issue here as well, partly because of my emotional attachment to this thing that has taught me so much and has helped me teach just as much. And if for some reason, I decide to stop, I will remind myself, like I remind everyone else, that impermanence is not insignificance. This will always be where I trace it all back to.
Whatever the case, the next post here will be the ultimate announcement plus a link. Please subscribe when the time comes.
Thank you, again, for doing this with me.
PS: Any bit of advice is welcome. What do you want to see? What do you not want to see? Do you have a name suggestion for this newsletter? I cannot promise to take the advice but I will most certainly listen.
