the art of writing while experiencing

i’ve learned a lot from the time i was here. it has only been two months but i have learned more here than i have in one year in indonesia. and i think that says a lot. but one thing i learned to do best here is writing while experiencing.

sometimes i find myself distancing myself from everyone else in the middle of everything to write my current thoughts out and, well, publish them here. and no, it’s not a pick-me, manic-pixie-dream-girl, built-different, i-don’t-fit-in kind of situation where i’m trying to be different by being “not like the others,” it’s just that this environment makes me want to write. and unlike the comfort of my jakarta room that makes me want to write about my life experiences and my dream, this environment makes me want to write about myself. i’m no longer writing a love story of two teenage high schoolers falling in monkey love, or two childhood-friends-college-project-partners slowly finding their love back for each other, i’m writing about myself and my struggles. more interestingly, too, i’m writing them not in story form. i’m writing them through my eyes. i’m writing them through my perspective. i’m writing them through poetry, through songs, through the things i lost along the way during my teenagehood. and to an extent, it’s comforting. it’s heartwarming to see myself slowly turning into the line phospenous writers i used to adore in 8th grade, into the poets whose writings i once fell in love with before i dived into the world of… how do i say this… scene-writing.

but i am only an expert at writing the excruciating, the painful, the heartwrenching. so all of this can only mean one thing.