About Flashbacks

I left behind a blog in which I wrote over 1000 full-length entries (1000+ words) over six years, so naturally, I would want to bring over some old favorite entries to my new blog. I wasn’t too sure how to do that at first when I started my new blog on blogspot. Eventually I decided that I would simply copy and paste them for showing whenever I was just going through some old posts and wanted to share some. Nothing complicated. But then I got introduced to the TV show Lost, and things just took off from there.

Flashbacks. Almost every new entry I wrote, I decided, would be accompanied by an old entry from my blog, and the old entry would serve a bunch of different functions. Show how I’ve changed (for better or worse), give background info on someone or some event or situation in the present timeline, explain why I do what I do today, etc. I’m not going to go into every single way I’ve used a flashback, because there’s a lot, but here are some examples:

The flashback in “Fire,” even though it has nothing to do with the plot of the present-time story, explains why I’m such a “negative” person today. In “The Activist,” we can see how much I had changed (and in this case some would consider it for the worse). In “Sunshine Days,” I threw in a brief flashback just for the humor.

Eventually flashbacks became more than a way to copy and paste some of my old entries. My past experiences became essential to the present storyline, but many times I had never written entries in my old blog about these past experiences. Obviously I didn’t write about being a dicksucker-in-denial in the eighth grade, so I had to write about it from scratch. (I discuss more gay and coming out things later in this entry.)

Usually I’ve kept the flashback format very simple. At first I would just tell the present-time story, put in the flashback, and end with a few sentences or paragraph of my present-day self commenting on the flashback or wrapping up the story of the present-time story. And then I started sandwiching things: the present-time story appearing in between two flashbacks or one flashback appearing in the middle of the present story line. Honestly I wanted to go back and forth repeatedly throughout an entry, but I didn’t wanna throw readers off. I eventually started doing this recently, however, starting with “XY Attraction,” and I think it actually worked really well for the entry and the ones after it.

One other function for flashbacks, I’ve found, is that I’m able to write about stuff that was really sensitive and personal back when it happened, but now years later, it’s just not a big deal anymore, or I’ve changed, so I’m able to share it, sometimes in order to show how I’ve changed. There are a lot of things going on in my life now that I don’t write about because it’s all too private (yes, I actually don’t share everything about me on this blog), but once I settle my issues and let enough time pass, I’m sure these things will come back as flashbacks anytime between one month to a few decades from now. One obvious thing missing is why Trung and I broke up—we have details of when, where, and even how, but not why. I’m sure that I will write about it in detail in a flashback very, very long from now. And by the time I’m seventy I’m sure I will have covered every single thing that has ever happened to me in one given year of my life.

So far I’ve only discussed the flashbacks’ superficial functions, functions which I’ve all used pretty well. But, if you actually pay attention to and remember the details of the flashbacks (which I know must be hard considering that you already don’t pay a lot of attention to the details of the present timeline), you’ll realize that there’s a line that ties all the flashbacks together to form their own stories, independent of the present timeline’s stories, and these are stories that you would care about.

I know people just love reading coming out stories (for some reason). Unfortunately I was already out (well, out enough) at the start of this blog, so there weren’t a lot of present-day coming out incidents that I could possibly blog about. But through like 10+ flashbacks spread out in entries written throughout one year, I’ve accounted for a huge part of my coming out experience, from putting on a front by dating a girl in the eighth grade, to coming out to my parents in the tenth grade, and to being a silly little gay activist in the twelfth grade, and there’s a hell lot more in between, before, and afterward. And of course, there are still aspects that I haven’t written about, holes in my coming out narrative that I still need to fill in.

By the way, notice that the flashback about my girlfriend is included in an entry written in June 2010; the flashback about coming out to my parents, August 2009; and the flashback about me being a silly gay activist, April 2010. Yeah, I don’t present flashbacks chronologically—only when they’re relevant to the current timeline—and they’re developed over a long period of time, so that’s probably why it’s hard for readers to notice an ongoing narrative in the past. You’d think it’d be easier if I chronicled my entire coming out experience in one entry, and yes, it probably would be easier, but I would leave out a lot of detail. My eighth grade girlfriend probably wouldn’t get anymore than one sentence: “In the eighth grade, I dated a girl hoping that I could still be straight, or at least bisexual, but it didn’t work out because I was a full-blown cocksucker.”

With all the confusion about flashbacks and when they occur in the past, I created the timeline entry to try to provide some chronology to my flashbacks in case anyone gets interested enough to track me through my past. I won’t consider it stalking if you decide to do it when you’re extremely bored at home on a random summer night.