A bit about my blog

One might wonder why I started My True Self. That one is me.

The start

When I first thought about the idea, I told myself the story that I would do it in order to share my journey and because I thought I had something to offer. But that was just a story. If I had to be honest with myself, back then I was dreaming of a different life, about becoming rich and famous, finding people to connect with and all sorts of different dreams.

So I gave up the idea. I didn’t want to be such a person, putting myself on a high pedestal, as if I was better than who I actually am. It felt like I was hiding from my true self, which was exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do with this blog in the first place. I wanted to show the world how great I was for starting on such a journey, while in fact, I’m nothing like that at all.

In time, I convinced myself I would let go of the outcome of this new adventure and just enjoy the ride. I don’t actually want to be famous at all, I just want to belong somewhere and have someone to come home to. So I finally decided to try it out.

But why a blog?

I always wrote to myself. I always wrote my deepest thoughts and processed my strongest emotions through words for myself. I always write when I don’t feel like myself, or when I feel too much like myself, when life is confusing or when I need to make a decision, when life is good and I feel whole again, when I’m traveling and feel like I’m on an adventure. So this is one more place to write, which to me, is quite welcome. I’m curious about it. It’s not like I’m the most avid reader, or like I read a lot of blogs out there, but I just really like to write. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s good or not.

I have a weak sense of self. I don’t believe people can actually love me for who I am, so I hide in the shadows. I never really go out of the house because I fear I will never fit in. So I intend to start writing a blog as a push to get out of my comfort zone. I want to try and get to know myself again. I want to try and live a bit more. I want to know I didn’t just waste my life.

The languages

Upon starting, there was always a question I kept asking myself. In what language should I write my blog? I’m Portuguese, and so I always wrote in Portuguese by default. However, the older I grew, the more English became a part of my everyday life. I am constantly surrounded by English in movies and series, songs and videos, books and research, and even by talking with a very dear friend from another country. Therefore, I’m not just Portuguese anymore. English thoughts have been taking space in my mind in a way that sometimes I don’t even know how to express myself in Portuguese as clearly. The languages are so different that sometimes I feel like a different person when I speak in each of them. And because of that, I couldn’t give up on either of them.

Since I translate the texts myself, it ends up taking a bit of magic from the original post, so I don’t intend to translate every post I publish. Because of this, the Portuguese and English content will be a bit different from one another.

In the end

I believe there is a universe inside each of us. Inside me, there is a girl who wants to start a blog to be famous and another who doesn’t want to be famous at all. There is the girl who speaks English and the one who speaks Portuguese. There is the girl who loves herself and the girl who can’t be loved by anyone. All of them live inside me, and therefore, all of them want to write on this blog. In the end, I made this for them.