Sunday, December 6, 2015

The rest of the world may end not with a bang but a whimper, but I'm different.


I think I say this every year, but I can’t believe it’s only been 5 years since I last saw my mom.
It feels like a lifetime, like the time I spent with her while growing up was from a past life.

I’ve heard that every time you remember something, the memory changes a little as you add your own imagination to it. To me, that seems like a terrible thing because it’d mean every time I remember something about my mother, my memory of her would shift a little and it would get further and further away from the reality of how she really was like. At the same time, how could I stop thinking about her? That’d be equally as terrible.

I suppose I think a lot about useless things like that. Maybe I don’t need to think so deeply about it. But I was always a sentimental child, and as I’ve written somewhere else before, I’m a person with a lot of regrets.

I think it’s okay to regret things, even if it makes me sad sometimes. If anything, it helps me make wiser decisions now and hopefully avoid more regrets in the future. It helps me treasure the people around me now, and focus on being happy now so that I’ll have good memories of my time now later on.

I say that, but I also feel that I’m not doing enough. I asked myself earlier this week, “What have I done since the last time I made an entry like this?” I’m not too sure. I had a career change, I moved house, and I made new friends. But it’s all me, me, me. That’s not enough.

I have to live a life fulfilling enough for more than just myself. For my mother, who wasn’t able to live past 46, and still spent half of her life raising me, often on her own. For my grandma and grandpa, who have taken care of me since I was little, and even now care about me above anything else in the world. For my other family and relatives, who have me on the back of their minds. I need to live a life that makes all the love that my mom and family have given to me worth it.

To be honest, all I wanted when I was younger was to be normal. I didn’t have many friends when I was little, and my family wasn’t exactly the happiest family. I just wanted to be like everyone else, to not have to hide things that other people weren’t experiencing.

But now, I don’t want to be normal anymore. I said the same thing last year. Being normal is easy. Being normal would subdue all the love, kindness, and experiences I’ve received from the people who have devoted a large part of their lives to taking care of me. And for what? For me to just be alive and focus on making myself happy? 

I once shared some of my experiences with a teacher whom I was close with. I told her it was too bad she was never able to meet my mom and see how characteristic of a woman she had been. And my teacher said to me, “Vinci, even without meeting her, I know what your mom was like, because I can see her through you.”

I went home and cried that night, because I realized, then, that I really needed to become a better person.

The only way I can give back to the people who have loved me is to become someone who is deserving of their love.

It’s more difficult of a task than it seems because I don’t even like myself. How can I accept myself enough to be able to accept other people’s love, and pass that on to others?

I guess it’ll be a lifelong task. I'd better get started.

Thanks, Mommy, for giving me life. I’ll make sure it was worth it.