dear me,

from february 2022: "i tell myself different people have different finishing lines, and yet i derive happiness from feeling as if i'm ahead of the curve and conversely get incredibly discouraged when i feel i've been left behind. i tell myself that i am lazer-focused on forging my own path ahead but i still get envious when i hear about peers moving on to greener pastures. i tell myself that the world is abundant and there is more than enough for everyone, but i still fear the prospect of competition and i do feel wistfully piqued when someone whom i view as a "mentee" outperforms me, as if these are not tell-tale signs of a latent insecurity that's festering within me. it is almost as if i'm playing a game of hypocrite with myself and hiding how i truly feel with self pep talk and confident smiles on the outside." 

dear me, 

contrary to the conclusion you arrived at in the beginning of this year, you are not a hypocrite - neither are you playing a game of hypocrite with yourself. you are merely human and still in the midst of untangling the complex web of buried insecurities from the past - the collective narratives you fed yourself when you were not doing too well. 

you have always thought that you had adequately put the past behind you as part of growing up: those adolescent memories of nearly failing at math and the sciences, of feeling like you were the only one who could sense the immanent potential you had within you and feeling disillusioned with the world bc somehow that belief never translated into real-world accolades or opportunities which (on the contrary) seemed to come easily to other people around you. those narratives you had internalised when you knew you were a small fish in a big pond, but no one had ever warned you that you could feel so small and so crippled by failing to achieve the singular definition of success laid out by the cold, meritocratic education system in this country - an education system which continues to penalise those who fall behind. those afternoons when you tried so hard and yearned to be one of those girls "up there", but all you could do was stop yourself from recoiling from the familiar, sinking feeling of handing in papers with blank answers at the ring of the bell, or feeling utterly empty as you swirled frozen yoghurt while your accomplished peers seemed they were getting a head-start at their pre-university internships. 

this un-wrestled brokenness and your subconscious desire to never put yourself in such a position again were and continue to be at the root of what shapes your present-day inclinations - now that you are in better control to define your own narrative of what success looks like. in order to never feel like you're being left behind by the world ever again, you over-compensate and sprint towards the forefront of the curve: doing a solitary internship in new york during the summer of freshman year while your peers were organising orientation camps, overworking yourself to the bone with 4am nights in sophomore year to fundraise for two conferences, sending out linkedin cold-mails from holly's cafe in seoul during your semester abroad in junior year while your friends were properly enjoying their semester break partying and making friends, doing two of the craziest 28mc semesters (unprecedented in student body history) in senior year to graduate on schedule - and as if the workload was not insane enough, putting immense pressure on yourself to find a "dream" job in tech before graduation, all bc you wanted to reap the benefits of your tech giant loa internship without fulfilling the opportunity cost of delaying graduation by 6 months. college were your best years but they were also filled with immense toil and striving. and your brokenness had inadvertently compelled more striving as you transitioned into the next stage of life - starting your nascent career and concretising the dream of settling down and starting a new family. the dream of having your cake and eating it - being both a career woman and a young mother. setting arbitrary timelines for yourself and feeling upset with both yourself and the world when those timelines drawn in the sandcastles of your head did not actualise. feeling perturbed when you felt like the year was coming to a close but you had nothing concrete or noteworthy to show for. subconsciously pushing those self-expectations on your spouse bc you need him as the other puzzle piece to fulfil your lifelong dream. 

step one is recognising that you don't have to hit all these arbitrary milestones that you've set for yourself, bc no one is chasing you anymore. there will be no math teacher pulling you aside expressing concern for your grades and future. you are officially outside of the formal education system which had once made you feel so small with its singular definition of success. everyone is running towards their own finishing lines now and no one cares about where you are in yours - so look ahead bc the only question you need to ask yourself is this: is this path the path that i truly want to be on?

dear denise, this is a reminder to stop inflicting so much pressure on yourself. you can now afford to smell the flowers and pause to appreciate the season you are in - be it a good one, or even one in flux. the beauty of life now is that you have someone you love doing life together with you, in a house that feels like home 365 days a year. and most importantly, you have Him - the giant slayer who is for you and who fights for you, whose open door is one that no one, thing or circumstance will be able shut. 

and so, in this new season - i put my hope and trust in You, knowing that You bring all things that You will into glorious fruition.