About

"Who are you when you're alone?" 

I have always loved to write. It is a space where I can be the most honest with myself, to say things as they are - with all the contradictions, confusion and candour woven together. It's where I go to make sense of my internal world, untangle my emotions through words, and it has been a clarifying tool to figure out life around me. 

For the last decade, with a major job change in 2011, I retreated into my private journals to write to process some difficult things that were happening in my life. At the same time, I was adjusting back to life in the marketplace after leaving a full-time role in the church, and adjusting to new way of writing at work. Then, the pace of life just went uphill since then. 

So this question popped up in an article I read recently: "Who are you when you're alone?" Where is the "space of you" that you go to when curveballs are thrown your way in life, the place where you nurture yourself, ponder, ruminate and reflect? The writer, whom I respect tremendously, suggested that these things are often formed when we are young, and eventually become the very reserves that we draw on as we grow older to help us push ahead even when curveballs come at us from every direction.    

Writing + Music. These are the two constants in my life since a young age. It is the way I think, feel and express myself. Sometimes cathartic and healing, sometimes profoundly challenging and admonishing. But always deeply enriching - bringing me back to my identity and shaping my character in ways other things don't. 

With this blog, I'm coming back to a part of me I have put aside for too long. It is needful soul-work. The beautiful thing about both writing and music is that they can be privately savoured but also bravely shared, bringing others into that same space and conversation. So come along, and why don't we begin? :)

- Andrea