2 DECADES AND I MADE IT
This is a letter for tomorrow.
When I was in elementary, I had a diary. Containing my emotions, dreams, and humiliating experiences, it held my life. As seen different, I was always picked on. One day, I made the mistake of bringing this thick and pink notebook of secrets in school. It is worrying and embarrassing if it will be left home in a high risk of being read by my mother. I do not want to take chances so I made sure to not let it out of my reach. It was inside my bag along with my other eight to nine identical notebooks for our different subjects. Remembering the weird actions of my classmates then, letting me into their “funny” conversations, made me realize how foolish and desperate I am to make friends. When one of them traded seats with me to copy the notes on the blackboard, it is the exact moment I lost my life.
They bared me in front of the class. Writing this gives me the shivers as I can vividly remember their laughter, mockery, and disgust. They and the Universe know how the anxiety of sleeping not knowing where your diary went slowly crept and grew from my childhood. After retrieving it, I went home destroying any traces of the only true company I had then. Even the sole remaining sticker of Barbie that I kept for years – gone. They stole me myself, memories, sanity, and the ability to write. This might be the top among my most unforgettable life story in existing for the past two decades.
Sharing this memory, it is almost the same of what happened then except that this time, it is under my rule. It’s like I’m slowly regaining or if not, rebuilding, the self-esteem I should have developed from the start. Now, I have the choice to impart my stories to other people. Now, I am sharing pieces of myself in my will.
I am a witness, victim, and even the bad person to someone else’s story. Only I could understand the unexplainable feeling of embarrassment on my quirky moments or on when someone I met online decided to ditch me on our date right when he met me. Only I could tell the reason behind the scars on my body and soul, or of those notes left on my phone for years, or about my instant reaction of distancing from peers of similar oozing proud energy like my bullies. Only I could make decisions about the 5Ws and H of moving forward in life.
It is pressuring to grow up with expectations that I could handle whatever comes my way. It is depressing to fill in a role of someone who’s sure about whoever she wants to be in her life when she doesn’t even know of wherever will her decisions take her. It is difficult to attain the life, characteristic, and achievements that people of my age should have. I have to reassess whose life I’m living and maybe then, I’d find peace and strength within to continue.
I’ve been through so much, that I could create a book about it, series even. It surprises me that I’m still here and I continue to wonder why, which is okay. I’m at a point of finding sense in every day. I’m exploring who I am, questioning my preferences, identifying my strengths, accepting my gifts, and making peace in uncertainties. It’s hard. I know that it doesn’t fully happen overnight, in a year, or ten years from now. I guess, I can only know in the end, right?
As I face another year, new challenges will arise – each difficult than the other. I’m unsure about the time I’ll spent inside these tunnels but I wish to find the light. May it be within, from an object around, or from people I cross paths with, I hope to find the goodness in distress. I need to continue celebrating the little things, appreciation, and success I received. Not only the biggest accomplishments are worth a cake, finishing a normal tiring day also equates to good food and sleep. But of course, it seems easy and idealistic to attract positive energy. I’m confident that life will find a way to instill an idea that I’m unworthy; there comes a different battle of shifting my belief that I deserve happiness just because.
Then, I have to love myself. I mean, I do. But not enough. Understandable but I owe it to myself to fulfill the acceptance and care bar. My difference is my uniqueness. It’s awkward not to fit in, and I’ve been trying hard since, so maybe I’m not meant for it. The only option left is to own who I am. Easy to say, hard to do but with the amount of trauma I had in life, the least I had to worry is other people’s perception of me. Know that it’s a fact that we all worry about ourselves and it manifests with the hate or envy we feel about others.
There is nothing wrong in progressing on my own pace. Live the sweet child in my heart. I’m not half of the oldest age a human can live (or of the average).
Gratitude. To the gifts, especially immaterial, family, friends, and the Universe for discovering the essence of experiencing life and dreams. May this letter continue to find me right after I post it, the week after, or when I crossed-off my “tseklist”. A reminder that a part of me exists – the scared one who took a leap on sharing pieces of her to people, regardless if they’re the very ones who took advantage of her right.
I hope that I heal. In however way, it’s for me.
Aahon ako.
– Maria.
we thought we cannot 