You never know how hard life can actually be until you’re sitting in your home, jobless, no income, rent is way past due and your brain has literally disintegrated into mush. What are you supposed to do? Well, from my experiences, I’ve learned that sitting around, thinking of what to do isn’t the same as acting on it. I mean, come on, all it does is stress you out, right?
Something in me used to throb when I thought about being a teacher. I wanted to be known as the greatest teacher in history but as time passed and the more siblings I was offered to take care of, that small throb seemed to dwindle away. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love children. I just kind of strayed away from the idea of having my own or even having a classroom full of them. My love for teaching just wasn’t there anymore. To my friends and family, I was still a teacher – no matter if I liked it or not and it soon became hard for me to think of myself as something more than a teacher. I was bound to what everyone else told me I needed to be. Sucks, huh?
I had a conversation with someone one day (that someone became my fiancé after our many conversations. Go figure!) and the conversation started off pretty vague but somehow, we got on the subject of me being a teacher or not being a teacher – whichever it was. I told him that I couldn’t find any happiness in it, that it simply was not my passion anymore. Why is that? Well, mom wouldn’t let me change my major in school because to her, I was always supposed to be a teacher especially since I had said I would become one ever since I was in Kindergarten. I mean, jeez, is a girl even allowed to change her mind from when she was in KINDERGARTEN!? So anyway, he was the first person to actually make me feel as if nothing was wrong with me. He made me feel like it was normal to change. His exact words were, “Why didn’t they teach us how to start our own businesses in school and be happy with that instead of going to school to work for someone else and be miserable?” Yea, why is that?
I understood him well but what I didn’t understand was how to change from this sad ass teacher to a person who loves what they do and sticks to that one thing forever. Pretty long time to think about, huh? Well, I came up with this not so brilliant idea – I was going to not work as a teacher or even become one even though I had a degree in it. I am in debt of 50,000 dollars in school loans. My books are thriving but they aren’t where I want them to be. So still, here I am, just wasting away because I wanted to be stubborn and not teach? But guess what? I’m happy. Honestly, the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life.
Yes, this rocky road is HARD – beyond HARD but there’s so much pleasure that comes out of this road. It’s the loops and turns, the ups and the downs and when I hit a bump just right, it makes me laugh because I love this roller coaster, this bumpy ride, that tingle in my belly (I guess we still call them flutters). And I think that that is all that matters. I don’t believe we were put here to work all of our lives away and enjoy life when we’re humped over and our backs are cracking. I believe we have youth because we’re supposed to travel. We’re supposed to quit our jobs and find happiness in struggle until we make it to the top. We’re supposed to find true love in a conversation about doing what makes us happy. Apartments come and go. Rent comes and goes. But these things, here, that we are supposed to enjoy, we don’t have forever to enjoy them because we are not granted forever. We are only granted with now so why are we wasting 50,000 dollars on school for a job that we hate, and people we can’t stand? Why are we still wasting time not doing what makes us happy? What makes us tick? Because without your “love” of doing something, you’re just a broken clock and even if the clock is broken, it doesn’t mean that time has stopped.
So, yes, I sit in the same spot every day, writing about a fictional world that exists only in my head but I still get by until I make it to the top because that's where I'm going. The question is, are you coming? I’ve embraced the struggle and the pain, the suffering. Money isn’t everything, you know? It won’t make you happy forever – just for now. So excuse me while I enjoy my now.