Why I feel like an impostor at times
I think the problems began the day I paid for a domain, the blog was no longer going to be at “sajalchoudhary.wordpress.com”, I had paid to have the “wordpress” removed. And that changed things. This was not just going to be an interest any more, I was a writer now. I even changed up my bio to reflect the change. I also cooked up a facebook page to reinforce the same. That page incidentally has around hundred likes now, not that I have any clue as to how the people who got there, got there..!
Yesterday, I read a post on Medium. I do not remember exactly what the whole of it was about, nor do I have a link to it, but I remember the end. In essence, the author said, that she’d love to see more bloggers out there, instead of all the essay-writing-writers that she inevitably does. She talked about the progression of the writer, from doing a couple of years of blogging, to an essay a week eventually. She rued the absence of good bloggers. Good, funny bloggers.
The “funny” part stayed. Why? Read on, I guess.
Before everything I was a little kid who loved his stories, both what I read, and what I wrote. The reading was what I did though, mostly. The writing was reduced to, or rather had never grown out of whatever the curriculum asked for, though I tried to make it as unconventional as possible, whenever given the choice. Why else would I write an essay on “Hari: the gardener” and be commended for it. In case you are wondering, the other option was to write an essay on road rage.
That continued on till college, when I graduated into writing stories that were not in the garb of essays. Stories about love, aliens, and ghosts. Also, spies. I loved writing those stories. I loved getting inspired by the wonderful people all around. It was during these times, when I heard people say some of the nicest things about me, my work, including, of course, how I had such a casually humorous voice! I was funny, and not in a I need to try to be funny manner.
The day I first paid those eighteen or so dollars for the domain, the day I decided I was going to be a writer, I stopped being funny! Stuff got real! Everything became a step in that direction, a stepping stone towards greatness!
As I read the post that day, I realised I missed the spontaneity. I missed being funny. I missed not having to write for an audience. I missed the freedom that that brought. But more than anything else, I missed writing.
For an uncomfortably long period of time, I wondered if I should end it at that. I couldn’t shake the feeling of incompleteness though. It did not feel right. Or, maybe it had something to do with the fact that the bus is taking an unbearably long time to get home.
Turns out, it was indeed the latter! And, I did not wish for this to turn into one of those posts.
