To see how we've changed and grown, we must look back. And so, as I load up writings from my past, I will start at the beginning. The beginning of my 'blogging', so to say.
I was seventeen. I was still terrible at writing, but after starting to write my first novel in junior high, "An Elf's Tale", even though I was horrible at writing, (and anything involving language, including English) I had discovered how writing was one of the only ways I could find a way to express myself. It was the one way that all the stories that my mind seemed to sporadically invent (seemingly automatically) could find their way into the world. And so, my hobby of writing set sail.
Dozens of stories began to fill up my computer's hard drive, but I never seemed able to finish them or get far. I began to journal in my Junior year of High School, but once I reached my Senior year, I took two semesters of A.P. English classes (Language and Literature) which changed me forever. Reading a new literary acclaimed book nearly every week, writing at least an essay a day, and learning how to analyze and understand acclaimed writings (poems, essays, short stories) were the strenuous aspects of the classes, and they enhanced my abilities and desires to write ten fold. Junior and Senior year came with all kinds of new and profound experiences, and the effect of all these things led to the stock pile of writings that shall follow this post.
Just know...I was a teenager, desperately trying to understand the world, discover himself, and experience new things. I went from a naive and obliviously scared little boy Freshman year to a corrupted, seemingly content 'cool' kid within just a few years. Though I had escaped my solitude isolated state into the popular public light, I was barely beginning to learn how to embrace myself and to truly express myself. I was truly hiding in plain sight...trying to find a way out of my shell. The attempts led to a dark search for self in which I abandoned much that I had known for the unknown, being hurt and hurting others along the way.
Please remember, I am not who I was. I am no longer that person. But to understand me now, how I've changed, you must see where I came from. You shall see who I was.
