Chapter XXI: The Point

When I started "Chapter XXI", it was really to chronicle the senior year of my college life in photos and haikus, the year in college when I turned 21 and where I felt like the beginning of the end to the commencement of this so-called adult life. I also felt like it was the start of possibilities, of becoming who I am always meant to be.

Looking back now, the idea and the premise was long gone. Chapter XXI had evolved to something else and I'm sure you all have already placed it in the category of "Millennial 20-something wannabe blogger who is telling the whole world about her life."

Trust me, a part of me has always wondered if I should just delete this blog and keep my thoughts and life to myself, in the confinement of my journal (which I keep as religiously as I blog, if you guys catch my drift).

But I guess, I'm having a hard time letting it go because I feel like this blog is one of my more heartfelt blogs. It documents my 20-something self, given that I'm only about 4 years into it. This is a web account of my my internal struggles, my naive, struggling 20-something year old thoughts. Every single time I'm debating on just letting this blog go, of deleting it, I always remember that having this phase is a part of my 20-something self just as writing fanfiction was a part of my teenage years. (They're clean fiction, mind you.)

 I then realized something. Just as writing on the internet to an anonymous audience has been my coping mechanism when I first moved to the U.S., this has once again become my coping mechanism as I struggle through these years of my life.

Helen Mirren puts it well saying:

“The hardest period in life is one’s 20s. It’s a shame because you’re your most gorgeous and you’re physically in peak condition. But it’s actually when you’re most insecure and full of self-doubt. When you don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s frightening.”

My Chapter XXI is how I clear my head, organize my thoughts, how I get the uncertainty and the fears out of my system. It helps get rid of the insecurity, of  the self-doubt. There's something about seeing it on the web that makes it more sure.

Perhaps it's our generation but there is this notion that anything you see on line is a fraction of some thought, some idea.

One day, Chapter XXI might disappear from the net (in terms of visibility because we all know whatever goes on the net will never disappear completely...there's a footprint somewhere) just as I disappeared from the fanfiction world from the 2 "pen names" I once kept.

But for now, it's here. It'll be here. And feel free to keep me company. :]