I messaged a good friend last night:
You know sometimes I think I’m living someone else’s life and not my own. Do you ever feel or think that? Like you’re external to yourself and you are seeing your life unfold from the outside. It just seems like things are so surreal sometimes. Like, I’ve finished law school and now I’ve got this ring on my finger. Who would’ve thought. Definitely not my 21 year old self. But then there’s this little part of me I picture as going on a different trajectory. This different life where I’m not going to be a lawyer and I’m not going to marry D and I live in a different city, like maybe Stockholm. And in Stockholm I’m by myself studying textile or furniture design or working on a cookbook, and my friends all ride bikes and live nearby and often come over to my place where we make supper together and we look like something out of the pages of Kinfolk magazine except a billion times better.
First of all, if my love of repetition as a rhetorical device wasn’t evident before, it is now.
Second of all, before anyone goes all Freud on my ass, I just need to say that I wrote that very late at night, after a long day of picking apart all the elements, powers and procedures of the Canadian Legislature (imaginary gun made of two fingers to open mouth, yes). In other words, I was feeling a little vulnerable because nothing kicks my confidence down harder than a law exam. They are literally designed to gut you and make you believe that you’ve made the most terrible life choices; your thought process is something like: OMFG, I can’t remember my cases; I probably shouldn’t eat so much junk food because the MSG is probably the reason why I can’t remember anything; tomorrow I am going gluten-free; why didn’t I just become a bus driver… And before you can continue on your journey to self-annihilation, your body just knows exactly when to cut your crazy off and make you black the fuck out from exhaustion.
So now it is morning and I am a totally different person from the neurotic who wrote her unrealistic life goals out to (thankfully) a non-judgmental pal. With a clearer mind, I write the following response to the aforementioned message:
Dear Self from 10 Hours Ago,
You are not living someone else’s life. You are living your own and it is not perfect but it is pretty damn great. At the very least, the Instagram community would deem your life based on your feed as totes #BLESSED.
You are going to become a lawyer because this is what you’ve always dreamed of becoming and doing since you watched that first episode of Ally McBeal as a teen back in 1997. You are going to make it because you work hard bust your ass and I don’t know if you know, but you are pretty fucking smart. If you weren’t you wouldn’t have survived even the first 5 weeks of law school and go on to strategically tackle all those closed-book, 3.5 hour exams, right? You embarked on this harder-than-Mordor route on your own volition, with amazing discipline, and driven by your own ambitions of utilizing all of your talents in the hopes of living life, as they say, to your fullest potential. You did not pick an easy route. Instead, you chose to go on one that you wholeheartedly believe will be significant even in the smallest of ways and that is truly admirable and even inspirational (maybe not Oprah inspirational or little 11-year-old-Chinese-gymnast-training-since-she-was-two inspirational, but inspirational nonetheless). I am totally a fan.
You are also going to marry the person who has taken the time to help you become the best version of yourself without compromising their own principles or dignity. You are going to marry someone who is steadfast and strong and admirably calm. Your relationship isn’t perfect but you have the sense to admit this and strive to make it better together. As much as romantic comedies would have you believe that it’s 99% fate, you know better. You know the success rate of any two strangers who decide to tackle the uncertainties of life together while trying to manifest an abstraction like love is not dependent on fate, but choices. You chose him without the help of clouds parting to let perfect sun rays beam down whilst cherubs fly over his head with a banner saying: “The One”. You chose him based on his abs the wisdom you’ve gained about others and about yourself gleaned from your own experiences. But we probably should believe in a little magic too I guess, because after all, he had to choose you back for this whole thing to be what it is today. Someone actually chose your negatron ass and that’s pretty fantastic, isn’t it? So when you feel your feet growing a little cold, remember that you have someone who makes a choice every single day to stay and warm them.
Lastly, your friends are scattered all over the world and only one of them actually owns a bike and she doesn’t even use it. So no, no one is going to bike over to make dinner with you. And this is actually a great thing because who are you kidding, you have no time to be making bread from scratch and hosting dinner parties at the moment. You have shit to learn and exams to smash.
So yeah, it isn’t uncommon to dream of a different life when you’re frustrated with your current situation. And your situation is factually hard and your goals almost unrealistically high. I totally get it. I get that the most Asian part of yourself is being tested because the journey to the (Supreme Court) Bar involves some next-level delayed gratification. It’s a perfectly normal reaction to high levels of stress to want to detach. So don’t go punishing yourself. You aren’t ungrateful. We all long for things we do not have because the proverbial grass is greener on the other side. You were tired and you are human and you really want a new designer bag but you can’t afford it. So really, it’s okay. But, Stockholm? Textile or furniture design? Are you kidding me? Honestly, you need to stop looking at that new Ikea catalogue and going on the Apartment Therapy website.
Everything will be okay. As you already know from watching My Best Friend’s Wedding a million times, ‘this too shall pass’.
Love,
Your Cheerleader and BFF
Image source: Tumblr
still kay. 