Writing about my literal life journeys
Me, haphazardly rolling off the sofa: “I like to leave dangerously!”
Like many, when I was 16 I identified as a goth and believed I didn’t need real friends. Unlike many, I started writing an angry blog instead of simply listening to angry music.
‘Blackscarlet’ - my first blog: black and red was ‘my signature aesthetic’. I even chose a fitting background picture of a goth princess in the same colours.
That page brought two things into my life that changed me forever: my passion for writing about my life online and the need to zoom out from my mountain hometown.
The idea of leaving Italy came to be because some dude online told me my blog’s template was the male lead of a few iconic Japanese bands. From that moment I started gravitating towards Japanese pop culture, which made me go on an unhinged date with a photographer, which led to visiting Japan and ultimately realising I had to leave Italy. All because of a picture!
I enjoyed putting my thoughts into words and letting them gently float in cyberspace. Unfortunately, I linked the blog to my MSN Messenger. My deepest reflections were bobbling in a cyber-puddle and my classmates were stomping in it. That caused me to stay clear from blogging for a decade.
There are things I miss about ye olde internet: Lookbook-style photos with cryptic song lyrics as titles, and Myspace top 8 friends charts.
Returning from Japan left me feeling I was in the wrong place. During my last year of Uni, I won a scholarship to study abroad and took the chance to hop over to England. Given the length of my stay and my busy schedule, a blog seemed a great way to update everyone in one go. I would do it right this time and aim to share my words.
‘300 Days of England’ - phase one: the title was literal. It was all about my study experience abroad, written in Italian for my close friends and family.
Those initial 300 days were fun, carefree, and full of photos and inside jokes. Photos were often taken on a digital camera with zero editing so they were, quite literally, unfiltered. As opposed to what I imagined most 20-something-year-olds Instagram would be, my blog was ‘the real deal’. I was indeed a special snowflake.
Despite my overseas adventures and online escapades, I have always believed that Facebook was for “real friends”. Some Dunbar dude said we could only maintain about 150 connections at once and I took it very seriously.
Watch me Marie Kondo’ing my Facebook friends list chanting: “Does this friend bring me joy?”
‘300 Days of England’- phase two: quarter-life crisis back in Italy. Same title but written in English for my imaginary blogging network and 40 Facebook friends.
Eventually, my year abroad ended but I rediscovered my passion for blogging. I hid my articles in Italian and joined aimless monthly challenges and nominations for unknown blogging awards. Did I feel bad for bombarding my imaginary audience on Facebook with links to my blog, only for people to find trying-to-be-funny, barely-original, and not-fleshed-out-at-all posts? HAHA No.
To give you an idea, here’s a whole post from when I just returned from the infamous NLP (aka life coaching) seminar. I titled it ‘Two steps to success’ and added a random image of a galaxy pizza with a quote from Parks & Recreation. This trick got 1559 unfortunate souls to open the link and 0 to engage with it.
I binge-watched all seven seasons of ‘Parks and Recreation’ in the past three weeks or so, but don’t worry, I do have a social life! With the delivery guy and my cat, mostly. In the first seasons, I could easily relate to April and then Chris Traeger arrived. He is literally the character we needed to understand that success is not something that simply arrives but that has to be built step by step.
The first rule to success is to behave as if everything is awesome:
By ‘behave’ I don’t mean ‘brag’ but stand like you do when you know you got it. Talk to yourself like you do when you feel secure. After all, it’s easier to change actions rather than attitudes!
The second rule to success is to live in the present:
What people always classify you as might stop you from taking chances on something you would really like. Only the present can change the future, so if you feel like running a marathon you simply need to put on your running shoes today and start training.
That was the best I could come up with after I sat in a room full of extroverts for two days.
Do you know what life coaches do to you? They convince you of things and make you believe you can do them. Yuck!
After the seminar, I was full of hope and self-hatred, maybe that’s why I bought my ticket to Australia. As much as I criticise the practice, life coaching may work. Sometimes.
‘Bring Your Own Lipstick’- unexpected title change! I almost titled it ‘300 Days of Commonwealth’ but vetoed my own idea when I realised I wanted to stay in Australia longer than that.
In Melbourne, I had no social constraints or expectations, no life coaches in sight, and nobody could judge me. Better yet, nobody knew me at all! I got inspired to write about deeper and bigger things.
I said I was inspired, not that I actually did it.
By then, I was convinced that corporate philosophy was my natural career path although, in my heart, I hoped that a content writing/editing job would fulfil my literary ambitions.
Blogging was an activity I did religiously, with the commitment of a cult member and the following of … well, no following at all.
I have always struggled to find my niche. Despite the titles, my blog was never a travel blog or a beauty blog, which made it hardly marketable and impossible to find. A niche would indeed have made me more consumable, but I was not there to be consumed. I was there to be experienced. Such a special snowflake.
My main goal was to address topics I would have talked to my friends about. Like when I felt so uncharacteristically responsible for buying my first flower bouquet for a friend’s engagement. I was navigating new and unexpected situations while discovering aspects of myself I never knew existed. A bit because of the whole culture shock thing, but also because of adulting.
I wanted to write the blog I would have liked to read myself.
Slowly, friendships started changing. I watched everyone around me achieve ‘adulting milestones’ while I still lived with the Boyfriend’s family. My Italian friends were not the best communicators via instant messaging and I started feeling left behind. Despite my love for blogging, something shifted and it showed in my content.
I cringe re-reading it now. I tried to sound wise and to teach useful stuff as if I had my sh*t together. Which I didn’t. I should have been vulnerable, instead, I wrote a series around the preconceptions of adulting and how little importance they had in today’s society. How ironic.
Writing became something I felt I had to do, just so I could say ‘I have a blog’.
Often, those who knew me would tell me they could ‘hear my voice’ when reading what I wrote as if I were talking to them. At least I got that right. But my content? Friends at home weren’t buying houses or getting married. No reason to buy flowers. My Aussie acquaintances, instead, weren’t living a life-changing experience abroad with virtually no friends, and they were quickly starting families. Nobody else in my social circles was feeling untethered and uprooted. Sure, we were all tentatively adulting but it would take vulnerability to admit it, and I would have never shown that side of me. Not on my blog. As if my 40 Facebook friends would care.
Suddenly, I wasn’t writing for myself anymore, I was putting up a fake persona yet I had no audience. Until, during those 2021 groundhog days, I just stopped posting.
Of course, my blog content is still out there.Unfortunately, with Open AI, the risk of my words being used as source is exponentially worse than having classmates laugh at my teenage crushes.
Directly from the archives, please enjoy this authentic photographic evidence:
i'm in awe of your rich expat history! this made me reflect on my own time writing online from a young age, something i haven't thought about in ages. i hugely resonate with the lack of a comprehensive niche, yet the innate desire to write no matter what. substack is so wonderful for that, we can really be ourselves and write exactly what we want!
Ohhh I would do a trip down memory lane if it weren't for the fact I frantically deleted all evidence whenever I was randomly done with yet another blog... I started blogging for funsies at 13, then started again at 18 when I was abroad (for more communicative purposes), then at 25ish, then at 31 again. CAN'T STOP WON'T STOP, unless I stop. I did write a post once about how I found a dead mouse in my fish bowl when we came back from family vacation and my parents still talk about out so I guess you can say I've been pretty successful 💅