The Curse of Being

Last Thursday, I went out with friends from university as an after work affair. We had ramen for dinner, then we properly caught up with each other over Vietnamese coffee. It was bliss. A bubble, which its existence would only last until we parted ways. Its weight was light, but it carried the three of us, and our dreams, hopes, fears, recent heartbreaks, rejection stories, and our past that bound us together. A nice start for the weekend.

My university friends knew about my current circumstance and mental state. They understood my need for escaping reality, even just for awhile, stealing hours away from reality to be cocooned in the warmth of familiarity and forgiving friendship. The meeting brought forth snippets of happiness and drabbles of comfort by sharing and listening to stories. I felt truly like the bleary-eyed, idealist, jacket-wearing, tote-bag-carrying girl I was back in university, when everything was coloured with rain and endless sips of tea and melancholy. It was grasping the familiar cloud of smoke.

Another familiar thing that we collectively endured was the pain and frustration of liking someone from afar. The three of us were, are, quite infatuated with people that have crossed our paths lately. We relayed to each other how tiring it was to hope, to want, and to need. Even though, for sure, what we feel is not love, but we felt like we were going to collapse under the inability of knowing and changing the circumstance we are in regarding the intention of the other person towards us. We asked what we thought of each other about our incapability to find someone that's interested with us although we have spent literally decades in improving ourselves.

This leads me to the conclusion that everyone can be too much, enough, or lacking all at the same time.

When I was a kid, my mother told me that I was still lacking in certain places, that my mental still have a lot to improve. I dedicated my life into trying to improve myself, all the while being oppressed into thinking that I should be more, I should act better, and I should not seek love unless I'm improved in terms of likability, and allurement, and relatability. People forced me into thinking that I am not worthy of love unless I am bettered. I was pushed to suppress myself, to bully myself, to distance myself from myself; causing love lost between me, my body, and my mind.

Then I learned that I should love myself regardless. I should not have waited for the one who would applaud my little accomplishments or carrying flowers to the graves of my mistakes, letting bygones be bygones; for I should have been that person. I mourn for the days that I was not able to support myself mentally and emotionally. It's a constant learning process to forgive myself after mounts of humane mistakes that I seem to do on a daily basis. Apparently it's harder to be both the cheerleader in the bleachers and the fighter in the field, constantly trying to drown the noise of the apparent self-created critiques; it's a perpetual battle of listening to the cheerleaders or the critiques. The critiques would loudly scream of how I could be too much and lacking at the same time. How I could be too much of a woman for everyone around me, making me lacking in the ability to be the personal or collective preference.

All in all, I still cannot think of myself as enough.