WHEN my editor-in-chief asked if I wanted to write a column, I stalled for weeks.

The invitation itself was casual — a Facebook comment that soon moved to Messenger.

“Do you want to write a column?”

Eventually, I said yes.

On March 10, 2023, my first article appeared in this paper.

For someone known to have opinions, I hesitated.

Not because I feared critics.

I feared sustainability.

A weekly column is not a speech or a social media post. It is a commitment to show up every Friday with something worth saying.

What if I ran out of things to write?

What if I didn’t — but no one cared enough to read?

Once I finally said yes, the real work began.

The column needed a name.

I settled on eXpresso yourself!, a title that felt appropriately caffeinated for someone who thinks best with coffee nearby.

Then I was asked for a photo.

Then I had to write the first piece — which, unsurprisingly, was about coffee.

After that, I opened my planner and began listing possible topics. I even asked friends and colleagues for ideas, just in case inspiration proved less reliable than my editor assumed.

The planner from 2023 still exists. The page is full of restless scribbles:

Coffee.
The science of dressing up. (which later earned me a YouTube interview with a well-known local media personality).
Curly hair in corporate corridors.
Motherhood.
Stress. Targets.
“Six more — topics of anything.”

Looking back, those notes reveal the first phase of my column: observation.

I wrote about everyday rituals — office culture, personal quirks, the quiet sociology of adult life.

Corporate. Personal. Contained.

Politics wasn’t there yet. I was still writing where the lighting was flattering.

Then the tone began to change.

Metaphors appeared.
Characters emerged.
Situations stretched just enough to expose truths hiding in plain sight.

Satire had entered the room.

That was the second phase: experimentation.

I tried fictional interviews.
Invented personas.
Built make-believe worlds that looked suspiciously like ours — only slightly exaggerated.

My editor watched this evolution with quiet patience.

Early on, he told me to think about my columnist persona — to write the way that persona would think.

At the time, the advice terrified me.

Persona? Was I supposed to become someone else?

For months, I nodded politely while privately wondering if I was failing some unwritten columnist exam.

Then came a column that changed everything.

Chronicles of a Caffeinated Critic in Loafers.

That was my Eureka moment.

When I reread it now, I recognize it immediately as the moment the voice crystallized.

The persona wasn’t someone else.

It was simply me — amplified.

More precise. Less apologetic. Sharper in tone and intent.

From there, the column evolved again.

Politics stepped into the frame. Elections, ayuda debates, and the recycling of familiar political theater made neutrality feel less like professionalism and more like avoidance.

Public life stopped being background noise.

It became material.

Topics no longer required hunting.

They introduced themselves.

Colleagues would say, “That’s your column.”

Family and friends would ask, “You’re writing about that, right?”

Around the same time, my editor began teaching me something subtle than content: cadence.

Tone.
Rhythm.

At first, I thought he was polishing sentences.

Later, I realized he was teaching me how to hear my own voice.

I learned to cut lines that were clever but careless. Satire without discipline, I discovered, is simply noise wearing better vocabulary.

In 158 Fridays and one detour into feature writing, I learned the real risk was never running out of topics — it was running out of courage.

Our paper’s mantra has always been to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. For a long time, I thought that line belonged only to the institution.

Three years in, I realize it belongs to every byline.

People don’t resent satire.
They resent recognition.

Systems don’t fear outrage.
They fear memory.

When I began, I worried I would run out of things to say.

Instead, I ran out of tolerance for silence.

This column is no longer an experiment.

It is ritual.
It is responsibility.
It is deliberate.

And as I step into my fourth year, the question is no longer whether I have enough to write.

The question is whether we are ready to read without flinching.

Still brewing thoughts — no sugarcoating, just stories steeped in truth.

And if three years of columns have taught me anything, it’s this:

I didn’t find my voice.

I trained it.

And I no longer whisper.