towards my own finishing line

 "action cures fear. indecision, postponement, on the other hand, fertilise fear" - david j. schwartz.

it has always been my dream to be a career woman and a young mum at the same time. i think the family planning facet only grew much bigger and became more tangible to me after marriage. in my head lives on a scale balancing what seems to be two dichotomous aspects of my life's priorities  - the ambition to push myself towards what scares me and pursue growth on one end, and on the other - the desire to start a family with the person i love in the prime of my youth. for the longest of time i had been hovering on the sidelines, favouring indecision over decision, fearful of making the choice that i'm scared will result in regret years down the road. but indecision didn't help - it just fertilised more fear, envy and insecurity. 

i had always prided myself on my self-security, but my inability to decide as i sat on the sidelines made me falter. i would watch on, green with envy, as peers of (what i perceive as) my calibre sprinted on towards their own finishing lines. i would feel almost angry at the thought that the corporate world had left me behind while i busied on sorting out the gazillion things that were happening in my personal life. 

but i momentarily forgot (or rather, refused to acknowledge) that everyone has their own finishing line, and that everyone has a different definition of what achieving their goal in life looks like. the family planning desire i had in me felt like a liability as i wrestled with the obvious - why must the woman be the one to sacrifice her career and bear the child? it just felt unfair that i couldn't have my cake and eat it - no, not when i wanted to have the family aspect in the near future as well. and then it struck me - having a child in itself will eventually be the craziest personal growth journey i'll ever have (in god's timing). pursuing growth and starting a family are not zero-sum but actually complementary - growth does not have to be manifested in mere career terminologies - it is so much bigger than what i had boxed it into. and it isn't as if i have to give up my career in its entirety to pursue the quest of childbearing - i will still have my career as i know it now. 

and so, i have made up my mind. i will no longer allow myself to waver, but instead focus my efforts on making my decision the right one for me. looking back, i have always been carving out my own path from the conventional and refusing to succumb to the fear of missing out. from interning in nyc straight out of freshman year to taking a gap semester for 6-months with a tech giant in junior year (and overloading by 28mcs throughout senior year to graduate on schedule), to refusing to settle for any less than the tech industry for my first job despite (what had seemed like) impending unemployment post-graduation, to even getting married and buying our own house at 25 - my best and most secure self is one who pulls heavenly strings while keeping my eyes fixated on my very own north star. these few days i have been pivoting towards taking care of my body and health once again: i've been taking the necessary vitamins, adding an additional meal at night to get my bmi out of the underweight category and finding a feasible workout routine that i can stick to after work. it's been liberating knowing that i'm beginning to invest in myself again, and slowly working towards my new personal goal in this new season of my life. 

the first reflection from home in my truest sense

it's been twenty four days since we uttered our vows, bound each other with our matching rings before the eyes of God and walked down the aisle as one. 

"...i pledge to love you in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, in sorrow and in joy, and i will always be true to you by God's grace, til death do us apart."

i think i am still reeling from the collective madness of everything that has transpired and i am still struggling to process how everything came together and came to be the reality as i know of now. 2021 felt like a year where we hustled so much, got lost in the minuscule details of choosing between grey and cream coloured tiles and consolidating guest covid p.e.t. lists in the marathon that didn't seem to end, and as abruptly as it started we find ourselves past the finish line - victorious with the fruits of our labour served on a platter to us all at once. i write this with our wedding ring on my finger and from the beautiful house that we now call our home for two - a cosy home that is warm particularly because we designed it and brought it to life together. a home that we are so proud of because it screams the marriage of our personalities and tastes. a home that has been showered with the blessings of the Most High. 

and yet i am human: inherently greedy; always wanting to have my cake and eat it. despite having my cup overflow in the most important facet of my life, i still feel discontentment with myself for not investing sufficiently in my career throughout this year. in the most logically absurd way i can't really fathom or put a finger to, a part of me still feels like i've let myself go (even though i know i hadn't - given that i have gained so much more in other aspects of my life). i watch on wistfully (and in all honesty - envy) as i witness my peers take the leap of faith to tread on different, "higher" paths - higher in the senses of pay grade and growth - both personal and professional. internally i start having my own self-pity party as i lament indignantly that it was me who had been voicing out consistently that x role was my desired role - as if verbalising it meant i were entitled to it. in that pity party i sing tunes that my other self finds hard to condone in others, including harbouring a sense of entitlement despite standing on the sidelines and refusing to push boundaries i am scared of. i frustrate myself bc i truly believe that the only way to actualise a desire is to work for it, and simultaneously i know that my peers are absolutely deserving of the fruits of their hard work - in the same way i feel deserving of mine. there is enough for everyone in this world - at the end of the day, i want to show up for my friends and celebrate their wins as if they were mine. i want to choose faith over fear bc i know that no man will be able to close the doors that He opens for me. i want to invest in myself without insecurity rearing its ugly head and whispering negative comments about the people around me. 

and so tonight i choose to fix my eyes upwards. i'll remember that all good things have come and will continue to come from You. i'll remember that i am merely a steward of good things and that my career will only mean something if it points the people around me to You, however that may look like. i choose to be thankful for everything that You have richly blessed me with, and i choose to believe that there is enough for everyone bc You are more than enough.