Twenty-Fourteen & Twenty-Fifteen

In retrospect, 2014 had been such a momentous year for me. If it wasn't because of that question of a friend while soberly chatting on New Year’s Eve, I would have not realized all these before the year came into a resolution. And I couldn’t let this pass, to share my gratitude to whoever reading this blog, that 2014 had been such a good year. And I am writing this one full of joy and hope.

It’s the year I finished my bachelors degree, passed the Philippine Nursing Licensure Exam, continued chasing my dream of becoming a doctor as I entered medical school, learned to live (pseudo) independently away from home, and a lot of notable firsts, adventures, new friends, and trials – which I think has made me to the person I am right now. Braver. Better. And I can confidently claim that. There are more significant things I could write about right now, and a day wouldn’t suffice for it – but let me leave you with those in this space for now.

Albeit with these accomplishments and happenings, I know there’s still a huge space I still need to fill in, as I grow and mature as an individual. And that understanding doesn’t end there, because as the year progresses, I believe I’ll be learning more while bearing with me these lessons I learned from 2014:

1.     People come and go, and as an adult, learn to distinguish who to keep and who to let go. As we get older, and perhaps, wiser, there are going to be circumstances in which burning bridges is not only fine, but an imperative thing. And it’s actually not bad. Sometimes, these people you share the same things in common before, won’t always be the people you should be sharing things with the kind of person you are now. Allow yourself to grow, and build new, healthy ones for keeps.

2.     Be the right person. I read a news article that really got under my skin and it goes like this “Focus on being the right person before looking for the one. This involves becoming a happy and confident person who has let go of his doubts, fears, and insecurities” and I couldn’t agree more with this! In my 20s, embarrassing as to confess this, but I occasionally get feeling the need to be wanted. In my psychiatric nursing class during undergrad, I fall under the stage Erikson called “Intimacy vs Isolation” which pretty tells a lot why I, perhaps, occasionally get this feeling (so no judging – because it’s actually normal, and I’m not being defensive about this) But then I realized over a year of being single, I still need to resolve some self issues, and I guess, I have every day to help myself.

3.    Value yourself. In medical school, I found myself trapped in torrential, endless cycle of exams after an exam, generally neglecting my health, which is kind of ironic to say. I devoured myself in cups and bottles of caffeine and sticks of nicotine, which I am greatly aware of that it’s unbeneficial to one’s health, yet still agrees with the idea that I need it to sustain self in medical school. From board exam review to first semester of medical school, I watched myself gain a tremendous amount of bad weight, as I also associated food with comfort when under a great deal of stress. It was horrible, and I felt so sorry for my body. With the start of second semester in medical school, I decided that I need to do something about it, and I need to help myself. Not because I want that hardrock, dashboard, coverboy abs; but I want to help myself regain a healthy lifestyle, walk the talk of a health care professional, and feel good once more. I'll have a separate post about this new challenge I'm taking (currently on my second month) - I'm doing this so I would feel the need to commit to this since I already wrote about it here.

4.     Failure is okay. Never have I ever in my life experienced such painful fall. Being raised in a striving household, and an institution that hammered in our head that “failure is never an option”, I grew scared of the idea of failure. I learned to put my guard consistently on hold, but always with lingering actuality of my vulnerability to committing error, and falling through. How else do you learn about life without making mistakes? But 2014 has taught me how my vulnerability to such fall and pain is alright, and that you are never alone in the rock bottom, and that getting up and trying again is also a nice option after a fall. Moreover it has importantly taught me that you are never your failure, and that it all does get better eventually.

These four lessons from twenty-fourteen are just few of the things I’ll constantly be reminding myself of in this new chapter to fill. And I guess now is the perfect time to fill it in just right, the way right seems to me.

Happy New Year!