Let Life Lead the Way

An incredible lesson that I’ve heard uncountable times but eventually sunk in this week: Life will never, ever go as planned.

Life won’t turn out how I picture it– and that’s ok. In fact, that’s wonderful! Every time my friends and I reminisce, it amazes me how I spent hours, days, and weeks planning my future just to have things spiral completely out of control, and then falling together more beautifully than I could have arranged. All those worrisome and sleepless nights with “I can’t” and “I hate” and “It will always be this awful” and “what ifs” proved themselves nonsense. It took many dark periods of failure, thinking I would never be ok, and seeing changes in front of my eyes, for me to learn this.

Looking back, I’ve got almost everything I’ve wished for when I was younger: avidly traveling throughout South East Asia, studying overseas, pursuing higher education (and kicking its butt!), learning more than I ever thought I would be able to, living in New York City while I’m young and zealous, riding elephants, bungee jumping, zip lining, backpacking on a ridiculously rock-bottom budget, spending all day spoiled rotten in five-star resorts, sleeping all day, not sleeping all night, eating food and meeting people from all over the world...

So why worry?

Then there are people who, God knows why, have been fond of me enough to teach me priceless life lessons. I didn't plan on meeting them, did I? Am I grateful they showed up? You bet. 

I’ve also only what I ask for, no more. I joke sometimes about being broke; but the truth of the matter is I’ve never asked for a lot of money anyway.

I’ve asked for a loving and supportive family and friends. I’ve asked for fiery adventures. I’ve asked for moral values and a brain – but not too much to tower my ability to let loose, have fun, and laugh uncontrollably until my whole body aches and until I’ve got the whole room’s attention on me.

Thus things I ask for today will come true one day.

Rambling aside, bottom line is I would never trade my life for anyone else’s (sorry people).

…All while I was frying tofu to serve with fish sauce and stir-frying basil chicken. The hearty aura of home-cooked food filled the room. Suddenly I realized I loved myself dearly, so dearly that I had to grab the phone to tell my friends…

…That I’m busy loving myself and I will let life work itself out.

Grad school: I'm dumber than I thought

Halfway in my first semester of graduate school, I affirm the truth: I am as lazy as a sloth and as dumb as a brick.

Let me first start by saying I don’t usually complain about work. Sure, to my loved ones, I whine occasionally, not because I hate things, but because I enjoy having them tell me they love me anyway.

But graduate school has taken the daylight out of me. Never in my life have I felt so incompetent. I’ve become so much of a nerd that now I talk about classes on my blog. Yikes! How exciting! I mean, who does that?

Perhaps since my day-to-day life now revolves around the classrooms, my office, and my apartment, there is little to distract me from the pile of unfinished work that relies solely on the knowledge I long ago had forgotten.

I was oblivious enough to spend a third of my paycheck on Sephora before realizing I will be spending 90% of my waking hours facing a computer screen and textbooks. Such ideal candidates to look fabulous for, right?

      --> Bottom line: Think twice about graduate school. Just because you rocked in undergrad means nothing here. Nothing.

…

There was a time when I was creating so many memories in so little time, hastily, hungrily, zealously, with a burning flame inside my heart. I wanted to make every second count. Now, gone are the extraordinary life stories of New Yorkers, infused in emotions that made my soul swell, ebullient with all I was learning.

In this small Midwestern town, it’s simple to the point of confusion: I don’t know what to think and how to feel most of the time except for a mild dash of nothingness. No adrenalin rush. Inside me is a starved songbird longing to hear and feel people.

Having said that, consciously or not, I’ve been adjusting. I sometimes find time to do everything to remind me that maybe, just maybe I’m not a dumb ass. I pick up meditation. I read. I learn to love not with what I have, but with who I am.

…

Some things in this universe are too beautiful to pass up: the eternal blue sky, the first reddening leaves of fall, the first bite of cheesecake I haven’t savored in a while, my lovely friends who are never too busy to hear me whine, Juliette.

And me.