WordPress notified me that on this day six years ago, I started this blog. I dreamed of writing a travel blog, so I decided to finally take the plunge in 2014. It was a time when I was grieving and very depressed, so this blog was the perfect distraction but also a reliable way to process the events that led to my grieving and depression. I had planned to teach English in Thailand for a year which began in the fall of 2013. After quitting my job, putting in my 30 day notice on my apartment, and paying for all travel, I was ready to go. But then my life quickly changed course, as it often does. Three weeks before I left the country, my wonderful grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctors wouldn’t even stage it or attempt surgery, so I decided to forgo the trip of a lifetime to care for my Poppie. Tending to him, observing his will to “go ten rounds with this thing”, and silently watching over him in the hospital was a beautiful tragedy. It was a traumatic gift. There’s an Italian term in music that I still recall to this day from my years of flauting: dolce dolore, meaning sweet pain. That phrase encapsulates everything I felt when I created this blog. The photos featured in this post were taken during that time period. I remember and honor that complex and lonely season of my life.

I am endlessly relieved that I have a place to share my raw emotions and thoughts that also galvanizes me to continue creating and practicing one of my favorite things to do as a human: writing. Sometimes it feels as though nothing exists if I don’t post about it. It’s not true until I can write about it here. This is my diary, my stone tablet, my anthology. A snapshot of new and old human narratives.

Because my posts are so raw, I didn’t share my blog with anyone when I first started writing. The only people who read it regularly, or at all really, were my parents and maybe one of my aunts. It’s odd to think that I had trepidation about how personal my posts were while on the other hand, I was sharing it on the interwebs, one of the most public platforms ever. I had quite a time finding my voice and the perspective with which I viewed my content. Over the years, that’s moved away from travel-centric and blossomed organically to what it is now.

Thank you for coming on this sojourn with me. Here’s to six more years of spilling my guts to potentially anyone who has access to the internet. My hope is that my verity can provide comfort, comradery, and a small sense of cheer.

Cordially,

Maegoeswest