I’ve carried notebooks with me for as long as I can remember. Back in middle school, I had all the usual stuff for my classes, but there was always one that mattered most: my composition book. That was the one I kept for poems, for thoughts, for whatever needed to spill out onto the page. Writing has always been therapeutic for me, a way to dump everything swirling around in my head and make sense of it all.

For years, that writing stayed private. Just for me. I never really wanted to expose it to the world, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I had anything concrete enough to share. I’m not a naturally opinionated person. I don’t walk into rooms with strong takes ready to go. But something shifted. I’ve started becoming a lot more comfortable with what I have to say. My beliefs are getting more solid, my stances more concrete. It’s been a process of exploration, figuring out not just what I think but why I think it. That distinction matters more than it sounds. Having an opinion is easy. Understanding the bones of it is something else.

That process is what eventually led me to build checkthreetimes.com, a self-hosted publication where I host opinion pieces but also open the floor to others: photography, art, music reviews, cultural commentary. It’s become a kind of platform for what I’d call unseen work, writing and art that deserves attention but exists outside the channels that usually hand it out. The whole point is to bring in perspectives that complicate easy thinking, not just offer more of it.

What’s interesting about this whole journey is how it represents a fundamental shift in how I approach writing. It went from being an intensely private practice, something I guarded and kept close, to becoming a tool for connection and dialogue. That middle school kid with the composition book would probably be surprised to see where this has gone. But the core hasn’t changed. Writing is still therapeutic. Still about getting thoughts out and making sense of the world. The difference now is that I’m inviting others into that process, both as readers and as contributors. And that’s opened up possibilities I never anticipated when I was just scribbling in that notebook between classes.