Nearly 21

Hello, hi, how are you?
It feels strange being a 'blogger', almost like I'm entering the unknown. I've never been one to keep a diary, when I was younger my Mum used to set aside an hr an evening for me to write a diary entry:

'Today I went to school, I had my favorite marmite sandwiches for lunch. At lunchtime I had to play kiss chase again. I hate boys."

That was a day in the life of a 10 year old, my diary entries didn't really differ but it helped me get my thoughts down and learn how to express myself. I haven't managed to keep a dairy since then, apart from the odd travel journal. I'm embarrassed to say that my travel journals, which started off enthusiastically at first, didn't last more than a week each time.

I loved having one though, carrying it around with my like it was my own special project. All mine. When I first went traveling in India I begun writing down everything I saw, smelt, heard and tasted. The first thing which hit me in India was the smell, incense mixed with spices. The smell curled around the streets, up the twirling staircases, through the mosquito nets and into all the houses. I didn't know you could smell heat until I went to India. Its what's stayed with me as almost a trigger which is hard to explain. When I visited Nepal last summer, the first thing which hit me in the airport was the smell. Emotions flooded back to me, eager excitement, happiness, and anxiety hit me just as the heat in India.

It's things you think you'll never forget that you should write in a diary. It's what you write and how you write it that will allow you that small insight into the past. Without first hand experiences of certain historical events how would we know what really happened? What people really felt? My travel journal didn't last long, unless something really struck me and I had to write it down. I think the cocky side of me questioned "why write a once in a lifetime moment on paper, when it's written on you". Almost like a tattoo, but then unlike a tattoo memories fade.

So I stopped, probably more out of laziness than anything else. A small pang of jealousy crept over me every time I saw Emily (my friend in India) write in her journal. There's something therapeutic about flicking through pages and pages of your own writing. Photos took over instead, everything I wanted to remember, I'd take a photo. It helped with my memory, but I'm not sure whether it was the same. In Thailand I began an online journal, it was more a "Where's Wally" than "Secrets of a Call Girl". In Nepal, Tibet and China my travel journal lasted slightly longer, but again it grinded to a halt.

So this is my final venture, the Twinkling 'This is you life' Twenties . A written mission undertaken at perhaps the most emotional, difficult, craziest period of life. They say life begins at 30 but if I waited until then that would be a whole decade of good times and bad times forgotten. I also get the impression they only say that to the 'twenty-niners' afraid to jump into the next big one.

So, this is how it feels to be a 'blogger'? For a moment there I was nearly speechless.

Until the next thought,

Hannah xx