Journal - January 25th, 2018

I wonder. How many percentage of us and our lives are governed by our choice. I know you are puzzled. the negative-minded crowd, we are objects of circumstance. The positive-minded will think, we always have a choice. I agree to the later, but how many percent of those choices actually within our control?

I mean, we didn’t choose to be born with the way we look. We didn’t choose our voices. We didn’t know why certain food taste good to us more than to others. I’m pretty sure we didn’t choose it. What about attraction and love? Why does our heart jump when we see one person and not the other? Did we choose our preferences?

“I guess, it kinda chooses you sometimes.” A friend said.

We learned to live with a lot of other people’s choices. The way we look were passed down by genetic architecture of our parents. Our “casings” were the consequence of our parents “choices”. On the day we were born, a lot of things were already chosen for us. Our skin color, our race, our hair, our religion, our nationality, the city that we will live in, the siblings that’ll grow up with us, everything were thrusted upon us, and we never got the chance to choose any of it at all.

After that eventful day, we started to live our lives and soon enough, they were affected by other people’s choices as well. When we were really young, how many of us really chose our school, when we can go outside, sleep, study, eat, what to eat, hairstyle, our socks, or anything big and small. These things were chosen for us, because we didn’t know how to choose them yet. Granted, by 3 years old, we have our own taste in socks, and my sister used to give my parents grievance about her meticulous choice in socks’ length. But still, you know what I mean.

Lately, I’m struck by how many of other people’s choices, affected my life significantly. I felt sad, angry, and helpless, knowing that I can’t do anything but to accept it, and find a way to move forward.

The thing is, I have a problem with letting go. It’s very hard for me to get over anything. I still can’t get over my cat’s death, and she’s been dead more than a decade ago. It doesn’t hurt me anymore, but to this day, I don’t want to have another pet. That cat was the last pet I had. Before her, I had plenty dogs, cats, birds, fishes, and they all died or ran away, but her death was like, “OK, that’s it, I’m not gonna have any pet ever again.”

Loss, to me, can take many forms. The loss of a friendship, a relationship, a dream, a possibility, ownership of oneself….. sigh, there are so many of them, and I’ve been experiencing all of them, roughly at the same time. It’s pretty upsetting to me that when friendships took a bad turn, relationships fell apart, or when dreams and possibilities died, I didn’t have much of a choice to turn it around. I mean what can I do, when other people involved in it had chosen the opposite of it?

I hate having invested a lot of myself in anything or anyone, only to be rejected, or, never-minded. You know, you can make time and be vulnerable with people, or you can groom them, or you put your trust in them, or made all kinds of plans, only for them to say, “Nah.”

I know I was supposed to walk away elegantly, but I felt humiliated, insignificant, frustrated, and honestly, crushed.

Believe me, I kicked myself every single day for not being able to be cool about all of it, but honestly, I never cared if I looked desperate, angry, or even mentally disturbed. I was hurt, I don’t know how to act all fake and say, “I’m okay, I’m okay, it’s cool.” When obviously, I was not. Thankfully, I’m blessed with this stubborn inner-strength, so even though I’m thoroughly broken, I can still function.

Time has always been the referee, the healer, or I don’t know, the one that catalyzed everything. I know that. Still, I’m impatient about it. Why can I just fast forward, to the time when I don’t care anymore, to the time when all these, are nothing but history.