I am the solution

2007 and 2008 was a tough year for me. It took me awhile to get my act together and be able to be where I am today. I was always envious of people who had a passion for something, and took that step to move forward and pursue it. For me, I was never really into anything and didn't get involved with much. Anything I was into and involved in, slowly started to fade away and I would lose interest. One thing that I always enjoyed doing was writing though. Since I was young, I'd write diaries, journals, and poems. However, I stopped when I reached college to pursue my mom's dream of becoming a nurse like her.

After three years of struggling with something I didn't even understand and had no heart in, I quit my job, quit school, didn't contact my friends, and stayed up in my room for about 4 months. Sometime within those 4 months of solitude, I remembered lying in bed one night and all of a sudden, I was thinking about my life. "What am I going to do now?" and "I can't just stay like this forever". Things like these we're popping in my head. I was so lost and confused and didn't know why. I then thought about my mom. Suddenly, all these images of her came in my head and I can hear her voice. I can see her disappointing and criticizing face. I can hear her negative remarks about me repeat over and over in my head. And I even argued and replied back in my head all the things I wanted to say to her that I've kept bottled up. For the rest of that night, tears continued to fall down my face. It couldn't stop. It even reached to the point where I couldn't breath, and my emotions we're taking over my whole body. I tried to calm myself down, but the more I tried, the more it got worst. I was scared my sisters or my stepdad might hear me. I had (and still do) so much hate and resentment toward my mother. I blame her for my downfall. "Why can't she ever just encourage me to do what makes me happy?" is what I kept asking myself, and still continue to ask.

Even now, it's still like that. Although I'm now doing what I should've always been doing in the first place, I still feel lost and confused. My mom is not happy with my choice of field. The journalism industry isn't a great one. I know the pay sucks. But yet, I can't seem to let it go. My plan was always to work for a entertainment magazine like People or US Weekly or even Teen Vogue. I wanted to work in L.A., meet and interview famous people, be a movie, music, concert, club, and fashion critic. Basically the whole hollywood theme, I wanted to write about it.

I've taken several writing and journalism classes and have learned a lot. But lately, that whole hollywood future I've always seen me in, is slowly starting to fade away. Nowadays, I'm picturing myself as a more serious journalist. I'm starting to have different desires and wants. I've been picturing myself traveling around the world into poor countries like India, Africa, or somewhere in Asia and just writing about what's been going on and what I see. I've been having thoughts of working or even volunteering in organizations that have a good cause, especially with orphans, or broken families. In class, we always talk about what's going on out there in the world and I've always felt out of place because I'm not that informed or knowledgable about what's going on outside of my world. And the more I listen and learn, the more I want to know. A lot of the students in my class are international students from Hong Kong, Japan. India, Switzerland, etc. It's amazing how they're able to study abroad, while for me, I've always just been in the Bay Area education.

That's when it hit me. "I can do more than this. I want to do more than just this". I've always just kept my thinking simple because I didn't believe I was capable of something more. I want to study abroad. I want to experience another culture. I want to see the world in a different view. I've been bottled up in this place for so long, afraid of what my mom might say or think, that it's retricted me to all the possibilites out there for me. As much as I know she will hate me for this, and I know it won't be easy for me to achieve this goal, I don't care. I'm tired of thinking "what if?". I don't want to repeat that night when I was crying ever again. If I'm going to feel hate and resentment, it's going to be toward myself because I wasn't brave or strong enough to go after what I truly wanted. Yes, my mom was the problem and she probably will always be the problem. But because of that, she's also not the solution. Therefore, I am the solution to my problems. I have to step it up and stop worrying about her expectations of me. I spent 21 years of my life doing so. It's time to start worrying about myself and what will make me happy.

I've always had this empty feeling inside of me. I hope as time goes by, it will slowly start to fill up. I tend to always change my background music with songs that represent my mood. This time, it's filled with songs of encouragement, hope, faith, and God. Because I believe God will guide and help me through this. I know God will never abandom me. I pray that one day, my mother can use Him to help ease the pain in her heart that my brother and I have caused her all these years. So as I listen to these songs, little by little I can feel His faith and hope in me and it's gradually pulling me back up again. I hope it does the same for anyone else who has their own troubles that they can't seem to deal with. As much as it may hurt now and seems like it will never go away, I promise you, it will get better.