Things I, a quitter, ended up sticking with before I knew it

Ever since I was a child, I was a quitter through and through.

I took piano lessons for 10 years because my parents kept paying the tuition, but I barely practiced and quit easily when it was time for high school entrance exams.
If I kept a diary for a week, that was a miracle. My diary would immediately turn into a sketchbook.
I started playing the clarinet when I joined the brass band, but I stopped playing it completely as soon as I graduated high school.

The first thing I was able to stick with for over a year, despite being like that, was a blog.

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I didn't use mixi or Zenryaku Profile, which almost everyone in my class used, because I found the digital footprints and connections annoying.

I started writing a blog anonymously during my year as a ronin student.
I shouldn't have been doing something like blogging, and it gives me a headache to think that if I had spent that time studying, I might have gotten into a better university.

So, why did I start writing?

A trigger that made me want to pick up a pen without thinking
An uncontrollable impulse
An unavoidable reason why I had to write

…If I had something like that, it would have looked cool, but unfortunately, I don't have even a millimeter of such a thing. It was just a whim. Therefore, I don't even have a memory of when I started in the corner of my mind.

If I had to say, I think I wanted an outlet.

I think I wrote about things like my mock exam scores not going up as I wanted, the pathetic feeling of not being able to maintain my motivation, and the impatience I felt when I met classmates who had moved on to university. And also, my thoughts on anime and manga I watched to take my mind off things.

Days spent secretly spilling my true feelings in a corner while carrying the guilt of "I shouldn't be doing this."
I could write on my blog about gloomy feelings that would only worry my family and friends if I told them, and troubles that would likely be laughed off.

The only way to know if my posts were being read was by the number of hits. When I read someone else's article, it was just a "1" to them unless I left a comment. That inorganic nature was strangely comfortable, and I could conveniently rely on it. Before I knew it, I was reading and writing almost every day.
It was the first time I had actively continued something without being forced by anyone.

While spending my days like that, I happened to get to know someone in the same situation.
A kid who was also a ronin student, who actually loved manga and games but was holding back, yet sometimes skipped studying to read and write on their blog.
Even though I didn't know their face or real name, we knew each other's "now" better than anyone else. It was definitely a relationship I could call a "friendship".

When it was decided that I had failed my entrance exam, I wrote about it too. I think I wrote something like, "I failed. But I will struggle until the very end."
That kid had already decided where they were going to university, but they cheered me on until the end. Thanks to that, I was able to keep running, however ugly it was. I was helped by a "friend" somewhere in this world.

After finishing my year as a ronin and becoming a university student, I became busy with daily assignments and part-time work, and my blog updates stalled. I also gradually grew distant from my "friend."

By the time I had gotten used to student life, the article posting site I had been using announced it was shutting down. The era had already completely shifted from blogs to social media.

It is strange how a site you have completely stopped opening suddenly feels lonely once you are told it is "ending."
People who had drifted away from writing all returned at once to post things like "thanks for everything until now," and then left again.

As expected, I wrote something too.
Even though what I wrote during that one year certainly wasn't all happy, the words that overflowed were "it was fun."
I finally realized that by writing, I had created a "place" for myself.

And so, my "beginning" vanished without a trace along with the service's end. I no longer know where my "friend" is, either.

***

Since then, I have continued to write while hopping between platforms. By writing, I have organized my feelings, and by writing, I have shared what I "love."

When I write just as my heart dictates, I am sometimes lucky enough to make "friends." It was undoubtedly those beginning days that made me realize that warmth.