THE ART OF LETTING GO

“Ano hindi ka na papasok?” You wouldn’t to go to school then? That’s my mother’s line when she wakes me up during my pre-school and elementary days whenever I go back to sleep for another 5 minutes after getting up around 5 AM. And I hate it, big time. I hate that it is a reverse psychology tactic used to make me feel guilty for not keeping up with time because I hate being absent on my classes.

Just recently I encountered emotional battles. I was a fresh graduate with nowhere to go. I have plans but my plans seem to not be working because I did not anticipate how hard it will be after college.

All my life I know that I am good in the academe. This is not me being braggy, this is me saying I found the academe my safe haven. I get good grades and enjoy the feeling when I know what or how to answer a specific question on a test paper after hours of reviewing. It’s stressful but knowing I did my best and getting a good result after makes me feel good. Maybe the reason behind my academe fondness is psychological, pleasing people around me with the good grades so they think I’m good and worth to be friends with and be proud of?

My mind and body was set for academe, attending class, making reports, taking notes, listening, answering test paper. So imagine how devasted I am to find out that I no longer have to do it. How can you stop doing the things you were coded to do so? It’s like being a singer without her voice. You feel empty and lost.

After college I know I want to have a stable job and after sometime go back to the academe, yes I still have plans to go back to the academe. But the struggle began with how much I invested myself in the academe and forgot to invest in myself.

After the graduation rite was over I took some time off, much needed break after years of studying. And somewhere between those times I realized how doomed I was.

I don’t know how to move outside the world of academe.

Yes, they say it is really different in the working industry, probably heard that line multiple times already, but what I felt was different. I was accustomed to work and got my fair share of trainings for being part of the college publication and college student council but I still feel at lost.

I became undecided. I don’t know what I want, where I want to go, and what I want to be. I sent curriculum vitae to various companies in Manila and yet didn’t go to most of my scheduled interviews because I chicken out.

I was not ready.

Months passed by waiting for a job that doesn’t seem to be coming (government position) I went beyond breaking point and started questioning what happened to me? I was disappointed with myself plus the fact that people around me thinks high of me especially with the awards I had.

Some started to think that I was choosy with jobs. I started hearing how I happened to have a high standard in finding a job because of my awards. And that’s when I lost it.

I cried.

It’s already hard not finding yourself in a path/plan you wanted to see yourself in but it is worse to hear people talk about you like that as if they are only the one who gets disappointed.

I was in denial during those times. I was so disappointed with myself I can’t accept lost. I know I was losing; people talk about it so I know. I woke up feeling empty thinking how my day will probably be one of those passing days. I was in denial and the pain almost slaughtered my hope and happiness.

Friends told me otherwise. They told me not to put pressure on me since the world seems to take it as its job to rain discouragement on me. Friends told me to take it easy but how can you take it lightly when it feels like your whole being depends on it?

And then I accepted defeat. Or at least that was I thought it was.

I started acknowledging how eff my life was and how I was wasting my time. The sadness was still there together with the determination.

I think that was the storm which destroyed my life so that I can put it back together.

Am I happy? I don’t know.

But I am living and striving, isn’t that what life was supposed to be?

I’m trying to let it go. I’m trying to move passed the academe, I know I won’t fully move on but I’m trying to let go some part to accommodate other life’s opening.

They say art wasn’t supposed to be beautiful, it’s supposed to make you feel something. And this, letting go of the academe as my safe haven is not beautiful but it made me feel different kinds of emotion.

There’s no beauty in letting go, just the emotion.