Let's Begin at the End (Plus Flight Giveaway)

Tuesday, December 06, 2016

“If you don’t like the road you’re walking,

start paving another one.” ― Dolly Parton

When I first started travel blogging in 2010, I wrote like my life depended on it. I was still working at a desk job back then and when the clock struck 5, I knew my real work day had just begun. I would sit for hours at a café, typing feverishly on a borrowed laptop. I ignored the staff's questioning looks or the noisy crowds and even that cup that had long grown cold on the table.

After I quit my job and started traveling, I always had a notebook with me. I would scribble endless notes about the trip, inside a cramped sleeper bus, on top of van, with a flashlight in a darkened dorm room. I would then condense, write and edit all those haphazard notes the moment I could get decent wifi connection.

I wrote mostly for myself but also for the people who had started to take interest in what I wrote. Arm chair travelers, weekend warriors, dreamers, lost souls all over the world who shared the same fate: to always feel like we needed to be someplace else.

So I went on that journey of traveling across Asia with and since then, I have managed to make a living out of travel blogging for nearly 6 years. It has been that long.

But I feel that somewhere I seem to have lost my way.

I never wanted to burden my creativity

with the responsibility of paying for my life.

― Elizabeth Gilbert

Instead of writing about things I had experienced, the people I had met, the food I had tasted, the decisions I contemplated, I became engrossed in the business of blogging. I was set on traveling forever, on sustaining this life which constantly involved new experiences.

But as time went on, I came to the realization

that this kind of work no longer nourished my soul.

When you allow something you love to become your day job, in a sense that you demand that it sustain you in the material world, the magic begins to fade. That heightened sense of awareness that I had felt through traveling and blogging had somehow become a burden that brought a sense of panic and aversion.

The road that I'm walking on, one that I had been dreaming about for years, now makes me feel like I don't belong here. I missed the point. I had forgotten why I was doing this in the first place: to write and to share.

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely,

"and go on till you come to the end...”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I want to start over. To fall back in love with the craft of writing. And for that, I need to write for me. I need to write as me. I feel that there are so many stories running through my head just waiting to be born.

Next year, I'll be changing things around this blog to make it feel like home again- that safe place where I can share my thoughts, ideas and mostly my stories. I think that in the end, it's what we will remember the most. The stories, those little threads of joy, sadness, fear, and excitement that create the fabric we call Life.

Perhaps some of you will want to sit with me, and chat like old friends. And perhaps some of you may leave because you have other journeys, other stories to follow. But I know that our lives will intersect again.

But before that, I'd like to reminisce and go through some of the adventures we have shared together. Could you please tell me about your favorite post from this blog?

Flight Giveaway

Share your favorite link from We Are Sole Sisters on facebook, twitter or instagram and don't forget to tag our account and use the hashtag #bestofsolesisters. (Please make sure your account or posts are in the public setting so I can see them.)

To thank you for sharing and participating, I'll be raffling off 2 Airasia tickets to 2 different winners:

1 one (1) complimentary return seat/s on any domestic Philippines AirAsia destination from Manila.

2 one (1) complimentary return seat/s on any international Philippines AirAsia destination from Manila.

Please specify which ticket you want to win. If you don't have a preference, you will be eligible for both. Any nationality can join. You can share only one link per social media account to be eligible. You can post your links until December 19, 2016. Winners will be announced on Dec 22, 2016.

The travel period is until June 26, 2017 except during embargo period and is subject to availability.

You don't need to participate in this giveaway to share. If our journeys have crossed somehow and you found something in one of our blogs that resonated with you, please share them with your tribe.

Let's bring back the magic! I'm excited to start anew with you in 2017!