To say that a lot of things happened after that day is a clear understatement.
It is true what they say about "adulting" and being completely responsible for yourself. Occasionally, I miss the noise and the qualms of my mother and siblings, but there's really nothing like having a whole place for yourself (and my introvert self is overjoyed by this). It can be lonely and tiring at times, when your time is consumed mostly of work, shower, eat, sleep -- repeat 100x. But it's given me the long-awaited space and freedom to do the things I wouldn't normally do in the past. Liberating. Life-changing. Sometimes I still can't believe I'm here.
WORK AND OTHER DRUGS
Let's see. For 2 years, I've gone from one job to another - 4 times to be exact. I even juggled 2 jobs at a time working from 5 AM until 8 PM. Not really sure why I did what I did - it's not like I really needed to earn a lot of money. It was really more of discovering what is it exactly that would really satisfy my insatiable thirst for self-fulfilment - seeing as, at that time and until now, I find it personally necessary to know how to balance patience and bravery.
To share with you all those insane jumping moments in my career life; I did a short stint for a startup call-center company and our family business while also doing voluntary event projects. I then worked as a Marketing atchay in a large architectural firm for a year, and an Events Manager slash dying slave in an NGO for a gruesome 7 months. Now I'm pretty content managing an events space and building my events portfolio in a start-up co-working space in Makati. The haste was mostly to escape one dead-end and personally undesirable long-term effects of each job to another. Though some may say that what I did was all "entitled and impatient" acts of a typical millennial, I believed that each position was necessary for me to grow and mature in the timeframe each role deserves.
While doing so, I discovered many ways on how to live better, half-ass healthier and a little more sustainable. I co-produced and co-organized events that hopefully made sense to some people. I delved further into the unknown, consistently challenging myself to fail and rise, fail and rise - which happened spectacularly! You see, sometimes I think about the things I really want and who I really want to be, but then fear will come and shatter all of that, and then I'll suddenly decide to start over again because I'm the most coward person I know.
I was raised to be a coward however unintentional. I fear not passing my exams, fear of speaking up in class, fear of performing or talking in front of a group, fear of not going home before the sun goes down, fear of being caught doing "bad" things, fear of cockroaches, fear of ghosts etc.
For more than 20 years, I consistently fought for what I think is right for me and at the same time, always considering the unattainable standards my parents have fought for themselves so I never really learned how to trust my own decisions.
More in-depth realizations were discovered while watching this inspiring TED talk by Reshma Saujani:
A lot of times I still imagine that if there was an alternative direction for me, would I dare walk that way or stay in this path? My soul feels so tired these days though, I'm not even sure why. I feel like I'm chasing time all the time, trying to do so many things in a day, excited to grow, to learn, to fail, to live.. Hustling here and there, looking forward to that moment that I can just stop and stare at the ceiling for a full hour.
For you, don't stop pushing yourself and don't stop telling yourself that it's going to be okay. Even if it's hard. I know it's not easy, sometimes it's exhausting, sometimes it's so easy to lose track of time, but you own that time so manage it. Control it, and use it wisely.
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