You’ll learn to let things go.

Every time I go home to the province, I always hear my neighbors tell the kids in our community to “study hard and be like Manang Nikki.” I still have to constantly remind them that I am not taking law because they want me to defend them in court if they, by any chance, commit crime.

That pressure has been so unnerving that I sometimes don’t want to go home anymore. But home is important.

Although I passed numerous law school entrance exams, I found myself dreading enrollment, because I am a failure, and I don’t have the guts to push through my dream.

It felt as if my future has been so long lain. Finish communications degree, pursue a masters course, then take up law. Take. That. Law. School. Dream.

There’s a lot going out on my window: I see my high school friends having kids and family; some of them living abroad and pursuing their passions; others doing things that don’t even fit their professions, yet they are happy.

And here I am, dreams deferred, and indefinitely lost in track.

I am tired of dealing with the demons overthinking inside my head. I am tired of constantly reminding myself that I can do better if I start believing in me again. I am tired of smiling at people who think that I am a good example for their children. What if I’m not?

If there’s one thing that I learned from the past two years, it is the defeat that sometimes, we will learn how to let things go. It’s okay to defer your dreams and continue to look for ways to get out of life’s mazes of confusion. Letting go? Of course I know.