Under The Starlight

I have always been a fangirl.

As long as I can remember, I have always been into something. Be it things, a genre, a certain  show, or a celebrity, when I found something that I liked, I would completely engross myself into the things and be knee deep in no time. 

One time, it was horror mystery stories. I was as young as nothing more than 9 years old when I started to write numerous short stories on the unused pages at the back of my old school books. I would be meeting with my cousin at my grandma’s house, and we would exchange our stories and then talk about how we should compile them to make an anthology. We then bought a special book to write our stories there and we even decorated the cover. It was fun; both back then, and when I think about it again now.

A bit older, I was into this anime show. I loved it so much, I started to use the internet to find out more. I was only a mere middle school student, and there was a time when the phone bill went a bit higher than usual because I had too much fun with surfing the net. Maybe I was addicted to being online? It was something new, it was surreal, so it was definitely fun for me. And it was around that time when I started to create this blog, so hey, good job middle school me!

There were many more things since then. A celebrity I kept writing in my diaries, the joint project of making a manga (and yes, I was the one who did the drawing, despite not having even ten percent of the skill required), and the obsession of writing novels! I still remember my poor friends getting shoved of either my printed or handwritten writings, and me looking at them with glimmering eyes, feeling just so happy to see that my works had been read.

And then, there came the fandom culture. It’s basically just everything I’ve been doing; liking, obsessing, and almost literally revolving myself entire this one particular thing, but it’s more organized. There would be other people—it’s a community. I decided I wanted to get in on that. 

There have been many fandoms that I have—sort of—joined, but the fandom I spent the last five years in was the most memorable. In fact, it’s not even 24 hours since I decided I’d rather left, so it’s not a lie if I say that I still look at them with utmost affection and lingering feelings. 

Actually, I’ve been feeling so weird. It‘s just as if I’m peeling away a bandage to find out that the scabs have been completely healed over—only the ghost of prickly feelings where the wound was once there, remains.

I feel like I should’ve felt more hurt, but I guess the spell had been broken for a while ago, and I was just staying there for the sake of loyalty... and the fact that I was so afraid to lose my identity.

I have always been a fangirl, alright? And for the last five years, I have always been at that same place; making memories, experiencing happiness, pouring my heart out, and feeling love. If I am to begone, then what will be left of me? Where do I go to? Starting from now, how should I feel?

A little whisper inside my head tells me, then don’t go.

But what if the purpose of staying, when the magic is no longer there anymore?

My friend—a lovely fellow fangirl who’s lucky enough to still have the magic on her side—went and asked me, “So, are we off to find husbands, now?”

(There’s this cliché thing people can say when they’re heartbroken, ‘there’s a hole in my chest where my heart was supposed to be’ or something like that.)

So I laughed, and since it would be too silly and embarrassing to actually say it out loud, I just went, “That would be too hard. I guess I’d rather look for money.”

And I sincerely hope that answers enough.