Over the past year, I've come to accept that I love collecting and curating memories. I'm the type of guy to always "remember". I'm often moved to tell stories from my/the past. I like to think of myself as a storyteller, not as a career title, but out of compulsion. I feel an urgency to write, to narrate, and to pass stories along.

I find myself looking back at the "film" of my life time and time again. Things I have done, places I have been, interactions I've had, and fears I’ve had to confront. When I look back on these experiences, my aim is not so much to comprehend how they have shaped my life but rather to simply remember them. "I would like to tell this story one day, so I must keep it fresh,” I tell myself as I re-watch a memory and re-stack it, in the same manner as one would put back a book on the shelf after reading. I consider myself a big soup of nostalgia, constantly making the distinction between what life was and what it is now.

As much as I feel this compulsion to tell stories, most of them never leave my head. I often view myself as a failed writer, the kind who always talks about what they’re going to write but never finishes. Across my digital devices are drafts, sentences, and outlines of abandoned works. I find myself hating a draft in the middle of writing it. "Who would want to read this?" is a consistent thought that crosses my mind and makes me hate it even more. Sometimes I wonder if my high standards for good writing make me give up from the jump because I don’t trust myself to commit to a piece until it’s good enough for my taste.

I’ve tried different forms to tell stories: writing, podcasting, and poetry. I imagined it would be easy for me to switch from one form to the other if I needed a break, but I’ve slowly learned what James Baldwin meant when he said, "Every form is difficult; no one is easier than another.”  I would like to think that this is a phase in my life. I often console myself by saying, "I’ve written before, and I will write again."

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