It is midnight, and I have just gotten back from a bar/restaurant with a cousin on my father’s side whom I haven’t seen since I was 15. We’re 25 now. Life is very different, and we’ve spent the last four hours just catching up on everything that we have missed from the past ten years – and there’s a lot to catch up on.
This year, even though it’s just February, I have been doing a lot of catching up so far with my family. I’ve spent years away, and I have been feeling sort of disconnected. It feels good to talk. And belong. The start of catching up happened sort of by accident. As soon as I landed in my hometown, I went to a cousin’s baby’s first birthday. The entire family on my mother’s side was there. The next thing I know, my mom is telling everyone how I tell her that I miss my family. How now, as grown-ups, my family has families of their own, and I feel like I never see them anymore. By the end of the night, there’s a whole family group chat created with the name “Renata’s Breakfast” with all the cousins (we’re a lot; my mom is one of eight). We have a date, a place, and a plan to meet up so we can all hang out with each other. For the first time in ten years, I believe.
Being home and going through my old possessions, I realize my cousins aren’t the only thing that I miss. I realized I wasn’t just missing them. I was missing myself.
I have a collection of 20+ journals that I have been writing in since I was ten. I have all these journals plus a bunch of letters I’ve never sent (I understand you, Lara Jean) and miscellaneous pieces of paper. Some of these contain my “deepest secrets.” Some of them just have a bunch of make-believe stories. And I was so good at those.
I spent days reading my old work. While my grammar and sentence structure have definitely improved, I envy the creativity that I had 10 years ago. My younger self was funny, creative, created all of these plot twists, and seemed to have endless energy to create infinite words and put everything down with good old pen and paper. These stories felt very nostalgic. Some of them I surprisingly remember the plot of. Some of them told the story of a girl that I now realize I have somewhat become. Some of these stories purely felt good. And I realized as well that, since that age, I haven’t really written anything for fun.
With an older age came bigger responsibilities. And with these responsibilities came the need to use my energy for other things that did not involve creating a 20K-word friends-to-lovers story. But I miss it. I miss writing without feeling like I am obligated to do it.
So now, welcome to my Substack.
Where I write things for fun and share thoughts that I would have done so without hesitation when I was 15. Just by creating this page, I have gotten so excited that I actually wrote another two posts that I am just waiting for the right time to publish.
Surely, many things have changed since then. I have now graduated with my master’s, spent time abroad, traveled to many places, and I am dating. Fifteen-year-old me would be very happy and very proud. To make her even prouder, I am doing the only thing that has been missing and that, for the past 3 years (according to my vision boards), I have been wishing to do. Write for fun.
And maybe I’ll start feeling like that 15-year-old full of dreams again ✨.