4 Things I Have Yet To Learn After My Quarter-Century Of Living

1. How to let go. A tough one for me. First it led me to a disastrous long-distance relationship from which I’m still recovering since I still have hard feelings about that. Later on, my inability to let go and move on led me to another heartbreak when I couldn’t understand why someone I thought I really had a connection with didn’t want to try and have long-distance relationship with me. I learn slow. Especially when it comes to boys. I believe that’s why I’m not married while most of my classmates are skipping the broom and hatching as we speak. I wish my younger self hadn’t concentrated that much on wrong men but on her own mind and wild spirit.

2. How NOT to look back. I’ve looked back so many times that it might be the reason I get nauseous not only in cars and trains but in elevators now as well. Jokes aside, I’ve been trying to pinpoint the exact time I went wrong in my life since the day I realized I could be a great philosopher, some time when I was 10? So yeah, give me all that “everything happens for a reason” and “it’s God’s plan” and all and I’ll kick your ass. While I do believe in God and fate, I still despise people who are always cheery and have a stick up their butt, because it’s God’s plan us to be miserable. I believe there is a point, as there’s always a point in my rant. But where it is, I’m not sure.

3. How to take failure as learning experience rather than my personal doomsday. While you cry in front of your boss because she told you you’re not good enough, it is quite impossible to think that the world isn’t really being pulled from under your feet. Weeks later I realize it was a ridiculous encounter but at the moment, I somehow couldn’t stop crying those silent tears when my boss was blabbing without letting me speak even one word. I’ve been doing better at work since but a feeling of failure and of not being good enough doesn’t fade. Technically, I know that the world won’t end while I’m being “scolded” by a T-Rex but it definitely felt like I was dying inside because all I saw in my head were red all-caps letters saying: “NOT GOOD ENOUGH.” I’ve failed. I’ve failed me. Why couldn’t I have been better? I should have done things differently. Maybe I just don’t fit in here. And that spiral goes down and down and down. I’d tell that girl to get her head out of her butt and see how far she has come and how much she had done with her life, no matter what someone thinks. You’re learning, sweetie, that’s what you’re here for. They all can shove it.

4. How to love and appreciate properly. It has been a long road for me. Long path to understanding what’s really important and actually putting it on its rightful important place. Boys liking me used to be important. Until the boys I liked started hurting me and seeing me as a thing they could use. I’m pleased to say I do not have those kinda boys in my life anymore. I read that chapter, I had lived through that chapter and thank you God, I am done with that chapter and even that book. The most important for me was always my family, because no matter what they have always been with me and they have always supported me wherever I would choose to go, even if it’s far away from them. The problem was and still a bit is, I never really expressed myself well enough to let them know how much I love and appreciate them. But I’ve learned a lot and I find myself on the right track of things. Finally. The journey is hard and the way here was thorny but I taught myself words like “gratitude” and “appreciation” and they say it’s a game-changer. Let’s see.

My younger self was quite misunderstood and acted accordingly. It took her a long time to cross all those unnecessary items of her list and move on to those that matter. I guess we live and learn as long as we alive and breathing, aren’t we? I’ve learned a lot this year. And I hope it sticks this time because we shouldn’t waste time on the trivial and make it all count. Make the days with our families count, make the minutes with our sick dogs count and make this life more beautiful by spending time with the people we love, doing things we love. Otherwise, what’s the point?