More Hurdles to Come

A lot has changed since I started my journey as an international student last 2018. I remember starting my first term with all those energy and motivation in me. I think it was a heap of strength that got mustered even before coming here in Canada. When all those prayers finally came true and I said, “Thank you. I’ll do my best from now on.” Then, my journey begins…

It all started as a slow adjusting phase for me. I started adjusting to the life of a student again. You probably know what I mean when I say getting up early, making breakfast and packing lunch—that is, if I woke up early—also, trying so hard to listen to whatever the professor is saying with blank stare like I know what’s up, going home doing home works and in my case, running straight out of my class to catch the bus because my work is in an hour. Trust me when I say it wasn’t always this hard. But I guess with every new semester, the level of the course difficulty goes high and high too. It’s been 14 months now with no long breaks, exams almost every month, non-stop work, sudden homesickness attacks, and some more unexplainable breakdowns. Yet despite the hardship, I always try and look for that little string that’ll pull me up from the mess that I am. It’s becoming a cycle of me being okay and being sad. I think I’ve always been like this. There’s no such thing as an everyday happy life. I don’t know, maybe right? I mean how could one ever appreciate happiness if he/she doesn’t feel the opposite of it?

And so with everything that’s happening to me, I think somehow I got tired of my whining—in my defense though, it was one the few ways I have to let my frustrations out of my system—and negativity in life. But anyway, it’s crazy because one day not too long ago, I was dealing with another resentment in life and I heard my inner thoughts spoke back to me. I heard me saying that life isn’t about accomplishing one thing and expecting the outcome to make me happy forever. I need to be able to accept that this is it. This is how life is supposed to be. My life is about to get busier and busier and I just have to accept how it is and get on with the flow. Things won’t get any easier if I continue to whine and get mad about it. It’s all about mind setting and prioritizing what’s important blah blah blah. But then back to reality, my positive inner thoughts don’t come very often. It’s so hard to keep myself sane when I have so much to be stressed around me. I know everyone goes through the same thing and I think as long as there’s that part of them that looks out for that little string to pull them up out of misery, that string will find them. It may not hold on to them for a very long time, but I guess it’s up to them if they’re willing to hold on and be guided.

I hope you stay strong in this life.

More hurdles to come,

Gee