a little long throwback story about this year
I embraced this 2023 like a little kid opening a gift. I didn’t expect anything. The only thing I wished for this year back then as I whispered my wish was peace within myself. But we know many things about life happened out of our predictions. Sometimes it gives us a sense of fulfillment, like something inside us becomes whole, but other times, it serves as a new hole and emptiness, takes away a part of ourselves, and breaks us into pieces. Well, this year, I experienced both.
If I could describe the first six months of this year as a song— it was perhaps Paint It, Black from The Rolling Stone — stagnant, nothing much happened. My world was just a monochromatic sight. Black and a little bit white — I woke up, jumped from one class to another class, went back to the dorm, ate, slept, and repeated. I wasn’t making new friends with anyone. Every day, I only talked with the same person, which only gave me the same perspective on life. Though, I consciously realized it was my choice to have those daily routines. If I looked back, at that moment, I was too occupied to survive. All the things inside my head were full of “How?”. How could I reach this dream? How could I get that dream? What if I didn’t make it out alive? How if all the things I planned go wrong? How? and How? and many more thousand Hows. I was too naive to think that I could take control of anything in my life. Well, I know at some point humans always have the power to control their actions, but not with the output of it. I began drowning in this invisible small bubble of isolation. I didn’t know that I indirectly isolated myself. I thought I was free. But, turned out I began numbing myself. I lost the ability to sink myself into a new experience only because I was too afraid that I’d ruin everything. My ankle, my feet, my hands, my mind, all the inches of my body and soul shiver tremendously every time I think about my future, about family problems, about my little brothers and how I could give them a proper future way better than mine, about my parents and how they are constantly getting older without having a safe pedestal, and all the dead-ends that always leading on me as the one who must carry out the responsibility to provide. I gave all of me only to realize nothing left for me on the table. I felt like a walking corpse. I’m here yet my mind is everywhere, I’m alive but slowly disappearing. I started comparing myself with other people, with some of my friends who were lucky enough to get this shiny shimmering life. I compared how they could get along easily, and how they could jump from one experience to another. I compared how they can talk confidently without the burden that chokes their throats. I compared how fun their lives are. I compared anything, everything. It felt like going into the rabbit hole without the end. I would always find the smallest things about mine that I could compare with theirs. Trivial things that only raise a new reason to feel like “I’m not enough.”
It was not until one day, in the middle of July, as I tried to finish reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, I bumped into a life-changing quote that left me gasping my breath for a while.
“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”
Those words struck my soul like a clap of thunder. It slapped me on the face and woke a peculiar spirit inside me.
The voices inside my head were silenced. My vision was brought into the future. And I started throwing questions to myself, If I died tomorrow how many regrets I could bear on the trivial things that I decided to not commit only because I felt like I was not good enough about it? How much love have I already killed without even touching it first only because I’m scared of it? And how many fun things have I passed on before I let myself embrace it?
I have no answer for all of the questions as I realized the word “much” isn’t much enough to describe how much regret I would feel later on. And for me, “regrets” is the scariest thing in the world. Though people always say “have no regrets”, still, regret is an inevitable thing that hits us on a random day only to make us contemplate “the what ifs” situation. trap us unconsciously in the past and make us ignore the “now”.
I could deem that moment as an enlightenment. It was my personal renaissance era — the revival of my Roman empire, and I’m the Caesar Augustus of it. I started realizing that nothing would change if I didn’t change something within myself. Complaining about how miserable my life would not change the fact that the problem was still there, and I wasn’t going anywhere. Still in the same place, in the same mud, in the same condition, in the same state of being — nothing changed, only negativity remains.
So, in the last six months, I tried to turn the table on and played my cards well. If I could put up a song in this era, it was probably Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles. I committed myself every day to stop complaining, for it is only wasting my energy. I also promised myself to say “yes” more in any chance that come into my life. I learned to get along with new people. I did deep-talk with my friends about life and stuff and it made me appreciate them more as human beings. I let my friends see the unbearable scars I keep inside my soul. I opened myself up more and became brutally vulnerable and honest with who I am. I no longer tried to hide any broken pieces of me only to make someone stay in my life. I go out a lot more than before. I also often did exercise. I learned to cook and eat healthy. I learned how to put makeup on my bare face — something that I barely did before because of how complicated it is. I studied my outfit — what type of colors fit my skin the most. I tried to be patient and kinder to myself. I feel prettier every time I look at myself in the mirror. My jaw dropped still, every time I compared myself at the beginning of the year with the new photo of mine — there is no trace of the past in it.
In short, this year I learned a lot about myself that I barely noticed before, things I tried to deny only to portray myself as this strong perfect soldier. But, in the end, I’m just a woman, trying to figure out about life, trying to accept any storm inside myself, letting go of everything that slipped away from my palm, jumping out from one pedestal to another. I cried a lot like I always do. and I never feel ashamed to admit that I’m such a “cry-baby”. At least I can cry. It means that I’m not numbing my emotions, I’m not bottling up my pains, at least I realize that I’m human, I have a feeling, I evolve, and I’m alive.
