goodbye sixteen, i turn twenty-two (draftt)
i’m turning twenty two this year and it feels like i’m only saying goodbye to age sixteen
- don’t focus all your resources in one thing
- be easy on yourself… when you make mistakes
don’t pour all your resources into one thing
i was washing my plates in my dorm when i finally figured the answer to the burning question at the back of my head, which had continued to terrorize me ever since i left high school. truly a eureka moment, i realized that the reason why i was so miserable post-realization of being a formally academically gifted now-burnout college kid is that because all i’ve ever been doing for years was to study. perhaps my parents are partly to blame, for they instilled this idea of always aiming for the top since i was in pre-school. but both my parents went abroad when i was in grade school, and the villain fostering a more destructive version of that idea was me. i, from my own premature understanding, was the one who added the finishing lines from that concept. always aim for the top… to be worthy. always aim for the top… to have friends and never be lonely. always aim for the top… to never have regrets. obviously, those are all wrong. but then again, no one was really there to tell me they were. and so i made myself a mountain of textbooks, homework, and report cards. i climbed it and made a home on top. when it crumbled and i found myself beneath the ruins, not only did i lose my shelter — i also lost myself.
i’m an incoming senior in college now and i like to think that i’ve finally found a workaround to that. i’m not the person on top anymore, but i still get high enough grades. now, i have time for other interests like reading books (a hobby i once had and now have rekindled with), playing games (i recently got a switch which i love love), learning languages (bonjour), watching sports (i like ice hockey and formula 1!), well, of course, writing. (…)
This is an unfinished draft of an unpublished piece originally dated July 9, 2024.