As a teenager, I spent most of my time reading wordpress and live journal blogs, building unpublished websites, creating graphics and staring at fonts. This is during the pre-design-is-so-cool era circa 2006. I wanted to share what I was doing but I didn't have the confidence. Eventually, myspace came into the picture, and my life basically revolved around tweaking my fonts to 7pt, Georgia, -0.5 and sometimes changing the hover color to a very light gray that almost looked white. So, it looked like your links were disappearing off the page. This was cool.
Selfies were curated before the word selfie even existed in the dictionary. I stretched out my arm, flipped my camera and batted my eyelashes in the name of vanity and boredom. I managed to take decent pictures to feel lucky. If you think about it, it’s kind of awkward to say that you've been stretching your arm out for over ten years. Very, very awkward. Fortunately, last September, I had an episode of backing up my old photographs from 2006 and ran into a series of selfies that actually made me smile. I realized that growth is actually precious and it's always nice and weird to see how much you change. Strangely interesting for sure.
Eventually, I went to college and I got to use everything I learnt by myself. I ended up improving a lot more than I expected because I found what I was doing as fun and stimulating. Plus, so many people gave me opportunities to grow as an artist. That was enough for me to put in more effort. During this period, I wanted to have a semi-professional blog as well but I didn't know what I wanted to talk about (circa 2009). Basically, it took me over six years to mentally prepare myself.
However, was it necessary? In my case, for sure. I wanted to write for the long-term and for that, I needed to find my voice and build my confidence. I wasn't interested in starting a blogger or wordpress account and throwing out posts for the heck of it. I could do that in my journal. I wanted to be real and to do that, it would require me to lead an authentic life and have actual life experiences.
Would I have wanted things to happen sooner? No way. I appreciate how timing worked out in my life, because at the right time, I had a beautiful platform to work with and a solid understanding of design and photography. I learnt that when one large goal seemed daunting then it was important to my build confidence by attaining smaller goals.
Growth can be a painful, slow process, but it's definitely rewarding. Each of us grow at our own pace which is why it's very important to never compare yourself to someone else. Your process and story is absolutely unique to you and only you.