The Beginning of the End

   I’m very excited to say 2011 was by far the best year in personal growth I’ve had in my whole life. I not only learned so much about myself, but I found the courage to take many risks, I never felt more alive. Now that 2011 is gone there is a lot of things to take care of in this new year.

First, I’m more than excited to announce that next weekend marks the beginning of the end of a major chapter in my life: my life as an undergraduate student. Graduation is just around the corner, this June to be precise and I have many major decisions to make in the following weeks. I feel that this upcoming weekend will bring me closure and help me with the decisions I am about to make. This is the first year I start knowing absolutely nothing of what will happen, practically no plans made!

I guess you can say I am winging the first half of this year and see where I end up in the next couple of months. I am no longer scared of what may come next, if I stay to pursue graduate studies or if I end up living alone in a foreign country, I will welcome any change that comes my way. This last year I learned that if I don’t take risks I’ll never know where I can get to in life.

“If you want to do something big in your life, you must remember that shyness is only the mind, If you think shy, you act shy. If you think confident you act confident. Therefore never let shyness conquer your mind.”

-Arfa Karim Randhawa (R.I.P.)

May this year be greater than last, may we all learn from our past. Here’s to the future, here’s to the start of a new era.

Smile, the future is ahead of us.

Fear

I’m scared.

I woke up in the middle of the night crying. My dreams have mostly been cruel, and last night’s was no exception. I remember when I had recurring nightmares, over time they became a normal experience . The few pleasant dreams I had I guarded, I cherished even though they were nothing but cruel and taunted my emotions. I think I have come to a point where I have reached a critical point in my self healing and growth and that scares me.

I feel the darkness over my world, I have once again crossed to the dark side, or perhaps I never left it at all. I have so many personal fears I have to face, problems I have to solve, decisions to make. My dreams are merely a mirror of my reality, my hopes, my fears.

Last night I was dreaming that I told him to hold me tight, and very close to him. I felt the warmth of his hands on mine, his tender kisses on top of my head, I felt his chest against my back rising and falling. I could hear his heart beating, I felt safe. “Don’t let me go.”

“The nuns taught us there were two ways through life – the way of nature and the way of grace.  You have to choose which one you’ll follow.” - The Tree of Life (2011)

I’m scared of the unkowns that will come tomorrow.

P.S. Keep smiling.

Changes Are Coming

I was recently talking to my mom of how I was when I was little. Ever since I can remember I’ve had the same stubborn personality I still have today. Always wanting to do things my way, on my own. I learned to walk by the time I was 8 months, and started speaking within a month later. By the time I was a year old I was talking like a parrot and already running the house my way. My siblings couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to me first because I HAD to wish them a safe trip to school, I liked to walk by myself without holding hands with anyone. A few months later I knew my alphabet, and my numbers to 100, I would cut straight lines, I was pretty much ready for Kinder status. All thanks to my wonderful siblings who spent hours and hours teaching what I needed to know. By the time I started school I was more than eager to learn new things, I was excited and ready to learn and the same is still true today.

What really got to me was what my mom told me an old lady told her once, that her little girl was going to go far in life, I had the spirit of a natural leader. Mom went on to tell me to do whatever I had to do to find happiness, even if that meant going far from home. That’s been on my mind lately, and quite honestly I’m ready to leave wherever I am wanted even if that means the other side of the world. Although its been an idea I’ve kept with very, very few people somehow its starting to get around in the family, my older sister came to tell me to stay. Not like I’ll be missed right? Something in the way she told me to stay made me very sad, it was painful.

Image by *thefantasim

Its been an internal conflict of mine, to stay or to go in search of my very own adventure. I’m very torn between these two choices. For one, if I stay I’ll be home with the people I love, I’ll see my nieces and nephews grow, I’ll be ready whenever my love comes back home, communication with him will be easier. However if I stay, I won’t get much done. If I leave I’ll have the opportunity to actually go somewhere, be someone, isn’t that why I spent sleepless nights? To have a solid career? Haven’t I always wanted to have my very own BIG adventure?

I can’t have both, and I know that if I leave chances are I’ll come back to a very different home, a different everything. If I leave I’ll be completely on my own, no place to run to, no one to run and hug, no one to wish goodnight or good morning, and chances are if something happens at home I won’t even be able to come back right away. I’m trying to find signs, anything really that tells me to stay or leave. I ‘m running out of time to decide, and I purposely keep pushing it back everyday because this is a decision that will change my life in a zillion different ways.

Smile, either way changes are coming.

“Open Your Eyes”

Seems like nightmares are slowly creeping back into my life. This last one was by far one of the most disturbing ones I’ve had in a while, I woke up with my heart beating so fast, I woke up wondering. The thing about most of my dreams, especially nightmares is that they always seem so real. This morning I was dreaming that I was murdered, how disturbing is that? I remember in my dream closing my eyes and thinking “This is it…” it was like an epiphany within a dream, I smiled and I waited. I smiled because I felt like my time had come, I felt like I had lived a fulfilled life up to that point, I was happy with what I had done. Then I felt (yeah that’s how realistic my dreams are) the bullet piecing my skin, the warmth of the blood pouring out, I opened my eyes. I could feel the life dripping out of me, I applied pressure to my neck, I wanted to scream for help but I knew, I knew it was too late. All I thought of was to write a message on a piece of paper I saw on my desk, I wrote “tell S. I love him” and I began to cry. I cried not because I knew I was dying but because I knew I wasn’t going to see him again. I could feel my hands grow weaker because I couldn’t apply pressure to my neck anymore, I could see my blood forming a little puddle on the floor while tears kept pouring out of my eyes. My brother rushed in my room, I assume because he heard the shot, I smiled in between tears, it was more of a goodbye because after that I fell in my own blood and everything went dark.

    Sounds very dramatic doesn’t it? It felt disturbingly real. I stayed in bed a while later thinking about what had happened. I feel happy with what I’ve done so far with my life. I mean, I have so many goals and dreams but if my nightmare was to come true, yeah I would feel at peace in that aspect. What I couldn’t deal with is knowing I wouldn’t see my love again, or say goodbye to him one last time and I started to cry. I miss him. You know what it felt like? Like I was somehow in my own twisted version of Vanilla Sky (which is why I’m also sharing Sigur Ros) and my nightmare was gone when I opened my eyes.

Smile, “Abre los ojos”