INFINITY.

I had a momentary lapse during my final year in middle school due to the bigotry of my yearbook teacher. She preferred her Japanese students, and as the token Polynesian I was delegated to performing the duties of cleaning up the classroom, filing her paperwork and once even had to clean the portable bathroom. Never mind that I had a passion, never mind that I was her nearest neighbor in Manoa than the other students, never mind that I had just as much Korean as I did Samoan! I did learn something that year, but it had nothing to do with writing.

Finally, I’m in high school and at the time the only public school to publish a daily newspaper, “The Daily Pinion.” The days of discouragement were literally swept away, and I was comfortable on campus as if it were my own backyard. Actually, it was. My father was a Varsity coach, and I was running ’round campus during football and basketball practices since the age of 7, most of the faculty and staff were ‘Aunty’ and ‘Uncle‘ rather than Mister or Miss. I had the same regimen, and eventually became co-editor during my senior year.

Fast forward to 2007. Next year will be 20 years since graduation, and I never did become a writer. Well, correction, I never had any of my writings published. As the years passed, I chose to take the longest road I could possibly find, back to my passion. One filled with many experiences in different places, and as I type this I wonder how in the hell I’m still here! But, with the innovation of technology and the acceptance of blogging, I am afforded the opportunity to point and click and voila, published or ‘posted to journal’, same smell different odor!

And so, here I am with the same passion, but suddenly a whole lot of anxiety. I conclude that with age comes passivity. The “no scade ‘em, go get ‘em” approach seems to fade when the brain reminds the soul of “remember the last time we did this?” Regardless, I approach this with a responsibility to myself. After traveling that long ass road, I owe me.