But Then Again

Growing up in a considerably conservative household, I have never been so immensely interested in birthdays. My mum and dad built our family literally out of nothing, so there were numerous other concerns deserving thoughts more than remembering dates and anniversaries. For them, each day is a gift, and there is no tangible reason why we should cherish one day any more special than the others.

Just about why it completely slipped my mind that this blog celebrated its first anniversary on last August 4.

Sitting here while staring at the blinding bright screen, I try to remember the thing that I could have eaten by mistake on the same day absolutely a year ago that made me jump out of my bed and start blogging. In all honesty, I was nothing but a bitter stalker, lurking beneath this invisible siber world and intruding people's tales and tails. It's as though you were illegally reading a diary you had stumbled upon lying open on a floor. The anticipation. The kicking curiosity. The guilty pleasure. Ah, everyone knows this feeling. This particular excitement.

Since we are all every bit of a stalker, that's for sure.

So what made me want to blog, you might ask. Well, I don't know. But to give you a rough picture, having a blog is like having a mute friend with two functioning ears. You can whine just about everything that annoys the hell out of you, laugh your heart out, weep out loud and the list goes on and on depending on how miserable the life you're leading - and this special friend of yours will faithfully listen. He will listen and listen and listen - and the sole reason this friend of yours is mute is so that he can't yell back at you and huffily say "why the fuck are you telling me all this? Do I look any interested? Get the fuck away from me, freak!".

Ah, how comforting it is to know that you will never get to hear this being said every time you're pouring out the content of your heart onto your blog?

For the past 14 months, I have quilled some 240 entries and the one you're currently reading is numbered at 241. And what good will you get from knowing this, I will never know. But that's what blogging is all about. You will never know in what way your writing will affect those who are reading. Case in point, I once found out that someone quoted a fraction of something that I had penned on my blog as his status on Facebook, and I never knew that he had been following my blog as a silent reader. On another occasion, a friend of mine once revealed to me that she had been using my blog as an informal platform to learn English, just when I thought I could only be teaching the language in formal classroom. One friend even hinted a path as a writer!

Maybe in the next life :)

For the final note, I would like to thank everyone who has been with me through all my ridiculous rants, mundane moans, lackluster punchlines, imbecilic criticisms, wrenched profanities and just about absolutely everything. I thank you for all your comments and feedback, constructive and demoralizing alike, for they give me another reason to continue blogging. When you're old and gray, you can be sitting on your rocking chair with your grandchildren around and proudly telling them "You know what, I used to know this one stupid miserable blogger. I survived his even stupider writings!".

Finally, I would like to ask you to raise your glass and share a toast with me to: Feather Quill and an Inkwell for another year to come!

Cheers! :)