Four Years Later

Four years since I decided to chronicle my life after college.

Four years since I found my permanent home in the innernetz.

Four years since I started this blog.

As someone who used to start a blog and abandon it after a couple of months, it’s really surprising how long I’ve stayed here! In a life span I know 4 years isn’t that long, but my blog is old enough to attend pre-school. I spent 4 years in college, 4 years in high school, and soon, 4 years in my current job! Just one more year and I can already file for early retirement!

So even though it seems so short, four years is already pretty damn long.

A lot has changed around here. I thought this will be a food blog. After all, my first post is about my unhealthy lifestyle choices. But after earning my own money, eating out seems like a luxury. Then this became a book blog, back when I could finish a book within a week! That seems so long ago now, because it’s almost a dream to read a book within a month. In the recent years, though, this has become a travel blog more than anything else.

I often think that not much has changed, but just based on my posts I guess I have changed. It’s difficult when you have friends who have already achieved so much since graduation. I’m surrounded by achievers who are slowly climbing the ranks of their profession. I look at little me and I’m still here, still blogging, still reading, still fangirling. Then I look a little closer and realized that it isn’t so bad. I may still be far from my dream, but I realized how many little dreams I have made happen. They may be little, but they are enough.

First, I finally bought a domain! Though the transition from Nakaw Tingin to Oh My Janey hadn’t been that smooth, I’m still so glad that this is no longer a sub-domain. It’s like making this blog official or something. It took me more than 3 years to purchase my own domain, but I’m happy I waited.

There were months in which I rarely blogged, months that I didn’t feel like blogging at all. When you’ve been in the same office job for the past 4 years with barely enough income to work with, it’s not easy to go out and make things happen. Not much takes place in my everyday life to actually blog about it. Good thing I have friends who are so stingy and so infectious with their love for travel, that I found myself trudging along with their adventures. And eventually, going on my own adventures myself. It’s crazy how I used to be so introverted, but now I’m always itching to pack my bags and plan weekends with them.

It’s not an easy four years, though. I tried to prevent myself from posting anything too personal in this blog, mostly because I know my relatives read it. Heh. Seriously though, I have learned not to overshare, but there are days when I just feel so down and I took to this blog for comfort. Blogging (and writing!) has always been therapeutic for me. I’ve been mocked a couple of times on how much I rely on blogging, but it’s blogging that helped me through my difficult phase in high school and to cope with thesis stress in college. And now, blogging has been my release as I go through a quarter-life crisis.

I know this blog makes me look like a serious person, when in reality I’m a bumbling, perky, corny, overexcited fangirl. But when I’m faced with a text editor all these pent up emotions well up. And there’s nothing wrong with that, right? I like to think blogging makes me introspective. I like to think this blog helps me put meaning in the trivialities of life

I’ve encountered a lot of disappointments in the past few years, and this might be the most difficult year so far. It’s true that you’re hardest hit when you set expectations, but thankfully I have a strong support group (i.e. family, friends, Alex). I am now more capable of dealing with my own issues. I am tempted to go back to moping and wallowing in self-pity, but I realized that I am still young and I have a lifetime ahead of me.

‘This is minor, I can get through this,’ has now become my mantra.

I started this blog to document my adventures in the real world, but I didn’t realize that I’ll be blogging more about my misadventures. It’s fine as it also reminds me how much I’ve grown and learned in the past four years. Granted, I’m still far from being as street smart as my friends, and I have yet to encounter life-changing mistakes and decisions. But I’m always hit with a wave of nostalgia when going through my old posts. I can’t help but think, “So much has happened. I’ve come so far.”

So even though blogging can be a bit tiring and I don’t really get anything tangible from this pursuit, I don’t think I’ll stop. I have so many more mistakes to make and so many more chances to take, so to stop blogging means I give up on immortalizing my experiences and my memories.

They may seem insubstantial and they don’t really prove anything, but these experiences have helped me grow as an individual, one lousy road trip at a time.