So a few weeks ago, I met this blogger named Charli when she totally and embarrassingly schooled me on Twitter. I refuse to share the tweets here as I am still licking my wounds. Squinting eyes at you, Charli. To make matters worse for myself, she recently turned 13 years-old. 13?!? Really?!? Yes.
Okay, I’ll get over it. With time. Anyway, while Charli has blogged for over a year, she has only recently started blogging and reviewing books.
At the ripe old age of 13, I read plenty. I loved Nancy Drew and The Saddle Club. I even got in trouble for reading too much during school. But I certainly didn’t have the ability to write intelligently about what I read as Charli does.
Charli: I read around 4 books a week, depending…It used to be one or two per day, but when I moved to secondary school, it became less, and now I take notes for blogging, even less. I don’t mind, though; I produce (hopefully) quality reviews when I can!
I follow a few young bloggers on Twitter, and I am going to admit that they all scare the crap out of me. I am not joking. I look at their quick-witted tweets, cheeky insider jokes and hyper-active ramblings, and I feel a little nervous twitch in my stomach. Here I am, an old person, reduced to worrying I won’t be cool enough to sit at their lunch table.
I am sure I am not alone in this! Oh, really? Maybe I am? Okayyyyy. Moving on…
Charli: How do I balance blogging, school, Scouts, homework, reading, photography course, more homework and everything else? Honestly, I don’t know. When I typed that just then, I didn’t realize just how much I balance! I guess it’s just natural, with routine.
If Charli was trying to impress us, I think it worked. I have my routine that I occasionally stick to, but it certainly doesn’t come easy. I guess this probably has something to do with age again…
So why blogging? This whole time I thought blogging was some painful torture treatment, but not Charli. It’s her passion.
Charli: I love it. When I started, it was an outlet for my problems, and I was someone else. I was me, but I wasn’t. I could pretend I didn’t have all these problems going on, without having to change myself. I didn’t tell my friends or family, until about 6 months later. It was my place to go, in my one hour of computer time a day. And it still is, just in a different way. I still have problems, but instead, I review books that take me somewhere else, hence the name To Another World.
I found Charli’s answer intriguing. I think maybe a lot of us have went through something similar, so, to extend a little on what Charli said, I would like to share a little bit about my own past.
I struggled a lot through college because I battled with self-doubt and body image issues, which I think a lot of young women do. I started blogging on Tumblr and following a lot of “pro-ana” blogs. These blogs basically promote and glorify anorexia. I wasn’t anorexic, but I did throw up after some meals. And I definitely hated myself. Going onto Tumblr for me was like a transformation. I would look at these posts about girls starving themselves and forming crazy intense relationships with other pro-ana bloggers, and it made me feel a part of a community if I pretended that I harmed myself in similar ways. I needed to read about their struggles and equate them with my own even though my battles were nothing like theirs. It was a very detrimental escape for me. I eventually snapped out of it, but it is really something that can suck you in if you let it.
I said all that because maybe one of you reading this is going through something similar. We all need to escape sometimes for whatever reasons. I encourage you to find a healthy outlet like Charli did with blogging her book reviews. Find a good community of supportive, happy people and insert yourself into that.
But back to Charli and her dreams for life…
Charli: Dreams are a big topic. I want to be a family law solicitor when I grow up. I want to pass my GCSE’s and A-Levels well (of which I already know what I want to take) and have a family etc, all that stuff. I go deeper, of course. I want to somehow honour Simran, someday, my best friend from when I was 10 who unfortunately had a sudden death. I also want to always be there for my half-brother, half-sister and half-brother-to-be! There’s a lot of bloggy dreams too, but they’re less important to me, in a way…
Wow. Did you forget for a minute that she is only 13? I know, right. Crazy. I wish Charli all the best with every single one of these admirable dreams.
So moral of the story – Charli is going to take over the world. Because what’s going to stop this intelligent, witty girl? Nothing.
Nothing.