so much has changed since my last post in july 2013. so much so ... that i cannot put into words how grateful, blessed, and thankful i am to have the life i do. they say everything happens for a reason. they say happiness is a journey, not a destination. this opportunity for self-reflection of my journey is my aim today.
Aristotle once said, "It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light." graduate school was such a time for me. while the prospect of moving to NYC and living in the city truly excited me as it would most people, i left san diego with trepidation. this wasn't my first rodeo. i had lived away from home before - DC, Sacramento, Santa Monica. but the mixture of leaving home for an extended period of time, to a city whose reputation precedes itself, not to mention the harrowing ordeal of finding housing in NYC and starting graduate school ... left me engulfed in a giant mush of emotions. i still remember disembarking at JFK after my plane ride from San Diego without a house in NYC to go home to. just the flood of options for public transportation frightened me. do i take the subway, airtrain, bus, or super shuttle to get to Princeton from JFK?! there was light at the end of that tunnel, though. without the option of going home to my cousin and my sister-in-law, my niece and my nephew, i may have been a worse state than i could have possibly imagined. the home-cooked food and the love made the transition to the east coast that much easier.
the next big step was learning how to navigate the world of speech-language pathology. coming from a political science/sociology/international relations background, i frequently doubted my capability in succeeding in this field driven by neurology, anatomy, and physiology. at least for the first half of graduate school, i never gave myself the chance to truly enjoy the journey - i simply saw the obstacles. i will be the first to admit that when confronted with a problem, i ran. i wasn't always like that. but to those of you that know me, that single defining moment of college...changed me forever. i'll say now that it changed me for the better, but at the time, though i thought i was the only one that faced the problem head on, in hindsight, perhaps it may have been too much and those feelings manifested themselves in so many ways. i see it now. i have been running since. until recently. and i must confess, saying all of this out loud is like a weight off of my shoulders. i used to run and find solace in the banality of life - tv, movies, and food. i searched for places where i could fit in - feel like a part of something. a place where i connected with others, who helped me understand myself. i rarely took the opportunity to explore NYC - at least for the first year and a half, because i wallowed in self-pity and doubt. comparing myself to everyone around me did not help. at all. the constant need to be better, do better, and live up to the expectations around me suffocated me. suffice it to say, all that wallowing got me nowhere. the key of acceptance unlocked so many doors for me - accepting the cold, the weather, the long days, the even longer nights, the standardized tests...everything. accepting that i was meant to be here truly changed things for me. but the acceptance came in stages. i began to move past the past, but soon i realized i started focusing on the future - the wedding, and completing graduate school. i was only halfway through! the looming future caused as much wallowing as thinking about the past did. so i accepted it. and began to focus on the present. with the superficial objective of looking good for my december wedding, i started eating healthy - and felt even better than i ever had. but life is not life without its challenges. with my mother being unwell, i started commuting from NYC to San Diego nearly every six weeks. the guilt ripped me apart - being away from home when my parents needed me the most. you see, i was never the best i could be - the best daughter or sister, friend, or even best fiance. but i could feel myself changing. the cross-country trips were truly tearing me apart, and left me emotionally spent - but i could see a new me waiting to tear those shackles off and break through. the climax of that journey came in august 2013 - and it truly broke me down. i have never felt more ashamed, embarrassed, and, plainly put, stupid. but breaking me down meant that i had no farther to fall. i was finally free from the hold that undergraduate incident had on me. i was free. i finally realized that as much as i deserved the accolades, i deserved these life lessons that would create a whole me - a whole me that deserved the best of my time. it opened my eyes to a whole new world. a world where i made the most of this gift, the present. president obama's quote in the Humans of New York sums it up for me - "the thing that got me through that moment, and any other time that I’ve felt stuck, is to remind myself that it’s about the work. Because if you’re worrying about yourself—if you’re thinking: ‘Am I succeeding? Am I in the right position? Am I being appreciated?’ --- then you’re going to end up feeling frustrated and stuck. But if you can keep it about the work, you’ll always have a path." for me, life these days means taking it hour by hour. gone are the days of planning to deflect from feeling, gone are the days of seeing myself as the victim, and gone are the days of feeling alone. the new day is there for me to fill it with as much love, laughter, and happiness as possible. now, don't get me wrong. there will be obstacles. but that is when you know you are going in the right direction. "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." obstacles are not meant to bog you down. they are a test to your strength, willpower, and focus. how badly do you want your dream? dream job? dream life? dream husband, dream wife? how badly do you want it?? i can't put a price on the lessons i learned in NYC. i thought i'd never be able to see the light at the end of that tunnel. little did i know, that light started to radiate with so much warmth, and so brightly, that i had no choice but to open my eyes to the truth, and finally ... be the real, true me.
Aristotle once said, "It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light." graduate school was such a time for me. while the prospect of moving to NYC and living in the city truly excited me as it would most people, i left san diego with trepidation. this wasn't my first rodeo. i had lived away from home before - DC, Sacramento, Santa Monica. but the mixture of leaving home for an extended period of time, to a city whose reputation precedes itself, not to mention the harrowing ordeal of finding housing in NYC and starting graduate school ... left me engulfed in a giant mush of emotions. i still remember disembarking at JFK after my plane ride from San Diego without a house in NYC to go home to. just the flood of options for public transportation frightened me. do i take the subway, airtrain, bus, or super shuttle to get to Princeton from JFK?! there was light at the end of that tunnel, though. without the option of going home to my cousin and my sister-in-law, my niece and my nephew, i may have been a worse state than i could have possibly imagined. the home-cooked food and the love made the transition to the east coast that much easier.
the next big step was learning how to navigate the world of speech-language pathology. coming from a political science/sociology/international relations background, i frequently doubted my capability in succeeding in this field driven by neurology, anatomy, and physiology. at least for the first half of graduate school, i never gave myself the chance to truly enjoy the journey - i simply saw the obstacles. i will be the first to admit that when confronted with a problem, i ran. i wasn't always like that. but to those of you that know me, that single defining moment of college...changed me forever. i'll say now that it changed me for the better, but at the time, though i thought i was the only one that faced the problem head on, in hindsight, perhaps it may have been too much and those feelings manifested themselves in so many ways. i see it now. i have been running since. until recently. and i must confess, saying all of this out loud is like a weight off of my shoulders. i used to run and find solace in the banality of life - tv, movies, and food. i searched for places where i could fit in - feel like a part of something. a place where i connected with others, who helped me understand myself. i rarely took the opportunity to explore NYC - at least for the first year and a half, because i wallowed in self-pity and doubt. comparing myself to everyone around me did not help. at all. the constant need to be better, do better, and live up to the expectations around me suffocated me. suffice it to say, all that wallowing got me nowhere. the key of acceptance unlocked so many doors for me - accepting the cold, the weather, the long days, the even longer nights, the standardized tests...everything. accepting that i was meant to be here truly changed things for me. but the acceptance came in stages. i began to move past the past, but soon i realized i started focusing on the future - the wedding, and completing graduate school. i was only halfway through! the looming future caused as much wallowing as thinking about the past did. so i accepted it. and began to focus on the present. with the superficial objective of looking good for my december wedding, i started eating healthy - and felt even better than i ever had. but life is not life without its challenges. with my mother being unwell, i started commuting from NYC to San Diego nearly every six weeks. the guilt ripped me apart - being away from home when my parents needed me the most. you see, i was never the best i could be - the best daughter or sister, friend, or even best fiance. but i could feel myself changing. the cross-country trips were truly tearing me apart, and left me emotionally spent - but i could see a new me waiting to tear those shackles off and break through. the climax of that journey came in august 2013 - and it truly broke me down. i have never felt more ashamed, embarrassed, and, plainly put, stupid. but breaking me down meant that i had no farther to fall. i was finally free from the hold that undergraduate incident had on me. i was free. i finally realized that as much as i deserved the accolades, i deserved these life lessons that would create a whole me - a whole me that deserved the best of my time. it opened my eyes to a whole new world. a world where i made the most of this gift, the present. president obama's quote in the Humans of New York sums it up for me - "the thing that got me through that moment, and any other time that I’ve felt stuck, is to remind myself that it’s about the work. Because if you’re worrying about yourself—if you’re thinking: ‘Am I succeeding? Am I in the right position? Am I being appreciated?’ --- then you’re going to end up feeling frustrated and stuck. But if you can keep it about the work, you’ll always have a path." for me, life these days means taking it hour by hour. gone are the days of planning to deflect from feeling, gone are the days of seeing myself as the victim, and gone are the days of feeling alone. the new day is there for me to fill it with as much love, laughter, and happiness as possible. now, don't get me wrong. there will be obstacles. but that is when you know you are going in the right direction. "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." obstacles are not meant to bog you down. they are a test to your strength, willpower, and focus. how badly do you want your dream? dream job? dream life? dream husband, dream wife? how badly do you want it?? i can't put a price on the lessons i learned in NYC. i thought i'd never be able to see the light at the end of that tunnel. little did i know, that light started to radiate with so much warmth, and so brightly, that i had no choice but to open my eyes to the truth, and finally ... be the real, true me.
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