I live for words: communicating, talking, reading, and writing. Whatever form it takes, I can never get enough.
So this… thing, this passage—or coda, or whatever one may call it—is not to tell my story. I am but a writer among greats spanning millennia, with their own lives and stories written somewhere for eyes only they choose. My story is important to me, but it is not one I must finish so soon.
This is my love note to words. Told through the lens of my own life: a love song without rhyme or rhythm, a love letter from me to stories and all the history weaved in between words from our ancestors, our descendants, and most importantly, our own.
A meeting I don’t remember but cherish all the same
From that opening alone, I can say I’m not normal. I don’t think I ever was, not really. No matter how much I tried, I was always a bit too much. Too aggressive, too obsessive, too distracted, too loud. No matter how I tried to fit, no matter how some people tried to make me fit, I was always just too much. More than anyone needed for too long.
I drowned myself in words, you see. Always (and forever), I was reading anything, listening to everything, and letting words flow out of my mouth faster than I could think. Words are instinctual, for me. Never before has my brain run out of words, even if I now have some control over my mouth. I’m an even worse listener because I hear any word in my vicinity and I chew on the words in my brain, and always, always, there are words in my head.
I can’t say exactly where I got it, though. Sure, my mother loves reading, and she wrote many poems and songs. And my grandfather loves reading, his autobiography has hundreds of thousands of words by now. And maybe my entire extended family read so much growing up that I, as one of the youngest cousins, grew up with an entire library in our ancestral home.
Perhaps it’s safe to say that words are in my blood.
But I don’t remember when I started reading, or talking. I’ve heard stories, of course, but for all my memory, I’ve always been reading. I’ve always been talking, and trying to put words out into the world.
But writing. Oh, writing. I remember the first poem I ever wrote, even if I haven’t written one in years. I remember the first ever story I tried to write, unfinished and unpolished as it is, bound to float on the internet forever. I was 9, when I wrote the first poem. 10, when I wrote three chapters of a fanfiction I never got to finish.
Falling in love in a wholly unconventional way
At 10 years old, I found fanfiction. I remember the exact path that led me to it; I was watching PewDiePie take a quiz on this website, Quotev, and I wanted to take a quiz. So I did. And then I found quizzes relating to a show I recently watched, Kuroko no Basuke, and from there, it wasn’t hard to find the fanfiction.
I don’t know what compelled me to start reading fanfiction. Sure, I’ve always loved words and stories, but I was a child who lived with too many thoughts, and not a lot could keep my attention for long. However, after reading my first fanfiction, I wanted more.
(It’s what I’ve always lived by. More of anything I like. More of everything I am. It’s why I’m too much, sometimes. Even I get tired of myself.)
I haven’t really asked anyone else, but I’ve read that people who like fanfiction have always just wanted more. There usually isn’t any other explanation. Other than fun, but that’s always a given.
So from Quotev, from the discovery of something that has kept my attention for years, I went to Fanfiction.net, with a bit of dabbling in Wattpad, but mostly Fanfiction.net. In the span of months, I found a site I could bring with me on my phone. It was a life-changer.
From then on, I was always reading. Fanfiction ignited a love for stories that I didn’t know I could have. I could not stop, nor did I want to. I had so many stories in my head, so many unpublished and unfinished works. I was captivated and obsessed, and it was no surprise.
No love is perfect, and neither is mine
Fanfiction brought me to art school. It was a prestigious art boarding school for teenagers, all in high school. It was a full scholarship, with a stipend every month, and the students were prodigies from all around the country. It was spectacular, humbling, and utterly traumatic.
See, the school only accepted around 40 or so students a year. Sometimes less. But those students? They fought for the entire country’s art hopefuls to be there. There is always pressure because all of us succeeded in what people like us wanted: learning at the top art school in our country. The only way students can get in is during freshman year, and every year, students are kicked out or drop out.
(My batch graduated with 22 students. We started with 39.)
And for all my bravado, I was soft. I am soft. High school by itself would have already been hard for me, but at that point, I was already struggling mentally. Being isolated from schoolmates and not knowing how to handle everything new, coupled with the pressure of being at a competitive art school, was too much.
So, I broke, was rushed down a mountain to the hospital, dropped out of school, and stopped writing for the next few years. I only read, talked, and watched. I was homeschooled for the rest of my high school years. And then I got my first job at 14, and I had money, and well. It was the start of something new.
And then I started growing older, and soon high school was coming to an end. I started opening up again. I made new friends, I played new games, I obsessed over new things, and suddenly I’m writing again. And well, I’d say history happens, but my story isn’t done yet. My journey is still ongoing. After all, who knows where the future will lead me?
The unyielding power of words: My lifeline and legacy
Introspection is both my strength and weakness. One must know their own thoughts, but sometimes the cost of that is too high. Perhaps it is a consequence of always having words in my mind. Sometimes, it turns against me.
But words are what I live for. I tried to die before, multiple times, but when all else failed, I lived for my words. I’ve shed insecurities about people leaving when I talk too much, write too much, read too much, and listen too much to anything and everything. I embraced it, because, without words, I would not be here.
Because when I lose my words, that is when I die.
(I am a wordsmith. It is the only thing I have always been sure of. It is the only thing I will never doubt.)
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