11th year of writing

11 years ago today, I wrote my first handwritten journal entry.

To this day I still write entries by hand, about what’s going on in my life, what’s going on around me, and what’s going on in my restless mind.

I had a lot of things I was able to write about, small little things that made me sad or happy.

I love paper shops and collections of notebooks and pens. I think writing is meaningful. I love the sound of a pen gliding on paper because it reminds me that whatever is written is real. Significant. Tangible somehow. Whatever happened in the past happened, and our memories and feelings associated are real, and by writing them down they are remembered, however vague or vivid.

I think words can give shape to things that cannot be described and recorded otherwise. I think they have even stronger power than photographs and videos sometimes because what we see with our eyes is not all that we experience.

But words — I never quite understood myself why I’m an English major. Perhaps this is why — Words. Words are so beautiful. They have the power to capture moments of eternity.