Darlene ChaniMaya Postma

I kicked off the New Year by rediscovering a handful of blogs I wrote circa 2009-2011. I was finishing high school and starting college then. I started blogs for special occasions. I’d post 3-6 times, then abandon it.

Going back to those blogs and reading the posts was like meeting 17/19-year-old me again. I’ve changed a lot since those days. I gained new convictions and let go of a lot of others. Ultimately, what I notice most is I wish I had stayed writing as consistently as I did then.

My voice, opinions, and what I had to write about was age-appropriate at the time. I can’t imagine I was very fun to be around at that age. Hopefully I have mellowed out a bit in my old age.

You often hear the question, if you could give yourself advice as a teenager/any age, what would you say? I have the odd experience now of seeing several crystalline examples of who I was, what I believed, and the impact I thought I aimed to have on this world.

In any case, I have been reflecting on that girl’s dreams and what she wanted from life. I have been thinking about what I want to do with life, and who to have by my side. I want to recapture some iota of the energy in that girl’s writing voice. There was a carefree spirit to speak, and I don’t know how to bring that back.

The easiest place to start, I think, is to just keep posting.

Thank you for reading over the years.

Darlene