2015

 

A year ago, I met a girl I didn’t know I will consider as one of the bravest, gutsiest and strongest woman I know despite her small and frail Asian frame. She is born and raised in the States, I’m from the Philippines and we met in Malaysia. What an indeed small world. 

 

This girl sounded so much like those girls that I only see in the Hollywood films I am hooked to and I honestly thought I will never be able to get along well with her. I don’t even have that Valley Girl accent. I’m just a naive village girl who sees everything as magic. As we spent most nights chit chatting over beer, pigging out, swimming or just laughing about crazy stuff, she has told me how she dropped everything for love, flew halfway around the globe, left her career, comfortable and secured life in exchange for a promise of a happy ever after. It turned out that fairy tales aren’t for everyone. Things didn’t work as planned. They broke up.

 

During this stage, she realized what went wrong. She said she became needy, clingy, dependent and all the other things she wasn’t able to notice and what she has become as a result of having so much free time in her hands. Not that it was solely her fault but she can only speak on her behalf.

 

She was left unemployed, away from home, close to being broke but still, feisty, hopeful and positive as ever. She was full of ideas and she never lost the drive to become successful. I saw and I still can see how she works her ass off in picking up the pieces she lost along the way. I admire the resilience and strength I can see from her. I know how painful everything is but all I can ever do was to cheer her up in the smallest way I know and observe how she handles the craziness. She is now married to a guy she met in Malaysia and they are now living happily together in the US. My Mom was wrong. There is happy ending. We just have to search patiently for it. She has become one of the few people I look up to; a mentor and an inspiration. I was mentally taking notes and to be honest, I told myself that the day will come that I will not have any qualms about doing what I think will make me happy. We indeed don’t meet people by accident. They will for sure teach us a thing or two. And through her example I became more eager to be able to say that I have done what she has fearlessly done; dropped everything that weighs me down, risked everything and chased happiness. I will savor every second of this precious life. Money really isn’t everything. Call me a fool and unrealistic but this is how I choose to live my life. If it is money that will make a person truly happy, by all means, go for it. As for me, as long as I have basic needs, I will be fine. Life is too short to harbor on negative vibes and material things alone. If one day I felt the strong urge to be different and the things I am doing aren’t enough and not making me happy, it will never hurt to turn around and go back to what I was doing. Life should only be lived in one direction and that is towards happiness.

 

 

2 years later…

 

 

Dear Diary,

 

I left my job, my life and everything that I worked so hard for that thought I wanted all along. What now? I didn’t leave it for romantic love but to find my love for myself, to trace my roots and to push beyond the limits that I know I have. I am so scared that I have turned these fears to a god. Diary, it’s not easy to start again but I am lucky because not everyone who wants to start again gets the chance to. I don’t know where life is taking me and I will lie if I will say that the idea of turning around and live like how others are living doesn’t cross my mind. I mean, that’s easier but I don’t know if I will ever choose the easy path again and live everyday as if I am a dead fish being drifted along the safe shore. Diary, my parents aren’t very happy with how I’m choosing to live my life now and I’m afraid they will not be happy anytime soon. They will get by for sure. I know my happiness is what they want and I trust that in God’s perfect time, they will understand that I’ve never felt anything like this before. I have never felt this content and fulfilled before. I realized that the lesser I give a flying f*ck, the happier I feel. I also stopped giving a piece of sh*t to what other people are saying. It’s my life and who cares if my dreams spell nothing but possible. All I know is that I will not just pay bills then die. Diary, I can’t name every single emotion I felt but it felt good. Diary, as I read and reread what I wrote two years ago and how I admired this lady, who would have known that I will do what she did not to prove that I’m a brat but to say that it’s okay to chase happiness and we don’t have to explain. If the unknown scares me now, regrets of not doing what I wanted when I still can in my deathbed sounds scarier. People who broke my heart, made me laugh and taught me how to stand up for and love myself and to dream another crazy dream again are the best people I met in this lifetime and I know, I am bound to meet more of them and they will say…

 

Dear Danica,

 

Live a little.

 

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