A Thousand Deaths and Funerals I Had to Attend
At seven years old, I quickly came to the realization that I’m good at studying. I’m not good at studying in the sense that I have been a straight honor student, the top of her class, with different titles under her belt—no, I wasn’t any of the sort, but I was driven, the closest I could ever find myself being passionate for something. In a literal sense, I was good at studying. I tried finding what I loved outside of it – picked up reading, writing, painting, and everything I could try to make my own but nothing truly stuck. I loved them enough but perhaps not enough to keep doing it.
At twelve years old, I won my first-ever award, one of many to follow. Whether it be desperation or greed, it all boiled down to my hunger for something more in this life. Looking back, it was naivety and blind hope that kept me hanging on to an invisible rope. If one makes herself into something she’s not, that rope breaks from the weight it’s not equipped to handle.
At sixteen years old, I had a clear-cut path I’d created in my mind. Like my skills in crossing a road, I’ve been told it could be troublesome if I didn’t learn to look sideways. I wish someone had told me that earlier in my life. I didn’t know how blindsided I was when I didn’t get to do what I originally wanted. I knew that life was unfair, but it was only the beginning of how I would understand that phrase. I was supposedly good at studying and the world was testing my belief on how far I could stretch “good” because it won’t get me far in life. I was beginning to learn that good isn’t equal to good enough and that good is only adequate.
At eighteen years old, I didn’t know what to believe. At that point, I didn’t know whether I was still good at studying or if that’s what I had told myself to believe. I’ve spent most of my life directing my energy into something that could give me worth, not realizing I could have spent it by teaching myself to recognize what I already have. I’m still not sure about that last bit but I just wish that instead of using studying as a crutch for validation, I had used it as a weapon of defense. Unlike what I originally thought, I am now left weaker than I was before, not stronger. Life threw a curveball, and I had to switch paths multiple times in a year. I thought I already grieved but I mistook ignorance for acceptance.
At nineteen years old, I began to hate change. I was scared of it. I could feel the rope snapping from the weight I kept putting on myself, thinking it would help me stop the fall. It was inevitable, a foreboding sense that I had in the back of my mind for my whole life. I should’ve known but kept carrying my days as if they weren’t numbered. Every day felt as if I had a deadline; what I had could be taken away without my consent. An easy and gruesome crime. Change felt criminal. My ears rang from the constant repeat of the word acceptance that was hard for me to do. I cling to my rope because I made it my lifeline.
At twenty years old, I fell off the curve. I sit here writing to an empty audience, heard only by the ghosts of who I was. The option of studying is now off the table, and I lost the one thing I thought I had figured out. By centering my life around studying and being good at it – my identity became its result, not the other way around. One thing they don’t tell you about falling is that when you do, you fall fast. And when you’re on the ground, everything catches up to you. You believe you’re still falling but feel like you’re floating. Frozen in time, and you’re where everything is still as it was, everything was something you knew.
To my seven-year-old self, maybe we weren’t good at studying. We were just good at pretending. We’re so good at ignorance that we even fool ourselves. It’s something we haven’t completely unlearned. To my 7-year-old self, I cannot say whether there’s something we’re good at anymore or if we’ll be okay, but I hope you can see where we are today. I hope that eventually, you find your peace in me.