Back on Vocal After Ages — Same Old Me, Same Old Account

When I logged back into my Vocal account after so many months, it felt like stepping into an abandoned house—one where the walls were still standing, the windows still open, but the dust had settled everywhere. Nothing was broken, nothing was gone, yet everything carried the weight of silence. My account looked exactly the way I had left it: the same profile picture, the same bio, the same stories frozen in time.

It was almost haunting.

I sat there staring at the screen, wondering how so much could change in my life, while this little corner of the internet remained untouched. Perhaps that’s the beauty of platforms like these—they wait for us. They don’t judge us for disappearing, nor do they question why we went silent. They simply remain, patiently holding our words, our drafts, our memories.

And yet, the moment felt heavier than I expected.

Because behind this long silence was a story I had not written down.

The Pause I Never Planned

I never meant to stop writing. Writing has always been like breathing for me—an instinct, a survival tool, a way to make sense of myself. But life has a strange way of stealing your voice without you even realizing it. One day you’re scribbling down your thoughts like a river flowing freely, and the next, you’re dry, parched, unable to find even a single drop of expression.

For me, the silence started with exhaustion. Work consumed my days, responsibilities consumed my nights, and somewhere in between, my words slipped away. I told myself it was temporary. “I’ll write tomorrow,” I said. But tomorrow stretched into weeks, and weeks into months. And before I knew it, my Vocal account had become a ghost town.

The drafts I once opened daily gathered digital dust. Ideas that once danced in my head now lay buried beneath deadlines, meetings, and daily routines. The longer I stayed away, the harder it became to return. Writing began to feel like a distant memory, something I once loved but no longer had the courage to revisit.

The Fear of Returning

It’s strange how silence creates fear. I was afraid to return to writing, not because I didn’t want to, but because I wondered if I still could. What if my words had lost their power? What if my stories no longer carried the weight they once did?

I avoided logging in. It was easier to stay away than to face my own fear of being “less than I used to be.” Every time I thought about writing again, a voice whispered, “It won’t be the same.”

And in some ways, that voice was right.

Because I’m not the same person I was when I last wrote here. Time has changed me. Experiences have reshaped me. Pain, joy, struggle, and silence—all of it has carved something new inside me.

The Day I Returned

But today, for reasons I can’t fully explain, I opened my account again. Maybe it was nostalgia, maybe it was courage, or maybe it was simply the need to find myself again.

When I saw the familiar layout, the old stories, the unchanged profile—it almost felt like meeting an old friend. The kind of friend who doesn’t ask where you’ve been, but simply says, “I’m glad you’re back.”

That’s when I realized: it doesn’t matter how much time has passed, or how different I may feel. The words will always be waiting. And the blank page will always welcome me, whether I return after a day or after years.

Same Old Account, New Me

Yes, my account is the same. But I am not. And maybe that’s the point. The platform doesn’t need to change—I have changed, and therefore, the words I write now will carry a new depth, a new shade of truth.

When I look back at my older stories, I see a younger version of myself. I see the writer who believed in certain things, who was shaped by certain emotions, who had a particular voice. That writer is still a part of me, but now I carry new layers—lessons learned through hardship, reflections born in silence, wisdom etched by time.

And so, as I write these words now, I don’t feel the fear anymore. Instead, I feel gratitude. Gratitude that writing forgives us for leaving, and always welcomes us back.

What Silence Taught Me

The months of silence were not wasted. They taught me something I wouldn’t have learned otherwise—that writing is not just about constant output, but about the life you live in between. Sometimes the best stories come not from the act of writing, but from the act of living.

Those months gave me stories I didn’t know I needed. They gave me scars that now carry meaning. They gave me moments of reflection that now pour into my words with more honesty than before.

Perhaps silence is not the enemy of writing, but a hidden teacher.

Moving Forward

Now that I’m back, I don’t know what kind of stories I’ll write next. I don’t know if they’ll be joyful or heavy, fictional or personal, long or short. But I do know this: they will be real. They will be true to the person I’ve become.

And that is enough.

So here I am, back on Vocal after ages. Same old account, yes. But not the same old me. I return with new eyes, a heavier heart, and hopefully, a stronger voice.

Maybe that’s what makes this return special—it isn’t about picking up where I left off, but about starting anew with the same blank page that has always been waiting for me.