Finding Hope

For the longest time, I had been struggling with myself. How? Well, let me tell you:

Maybe it was all because of how society impressed upon me during my developing teenage years, maybe Hollywood had imprinted an idea of how things are supposed to go, maybe I saw it in others and thought that that was how life is supposed to be going, or maybe even it's just a biological tendency that I had been following. I don't know (and also I don't know if "tendency" is the right word for that, but I'm sure you can figure out what I mean in just a moment). All throughout high school and the short couple of years I had in college, I had tried and tried to find someone to be my girlfriend. Someone to love and to have that special relationship with. I don't even know why, but it is what it is, right? I can't exactly go back in time and fix things to keep my focus elsewhere or x, y, and z.

18 crushes down the road, 7 rejections, 1 close shot but ended up missing, and I realize I have been struggling. It affected my self-esteem to a level, and it also brought me down in some instances, some more than others (as you can see if you read this blog for a good while. If not, go ahead if you feel like digging through the hundreds of posts on here). Whenever I had a crush that led nowhere, or got rejected, I wondered to myself, "what's wrong with me that no one likes me back," or , "am I ugly," or even, "what kind of cruel game is this to get feelings, finally build up the courage to go for it, and be shot down like a clay pigeon in a skeet shooting competition?" What I'm trying to say is that it got to me. Slowly but surely, chipping away at my core piece by piece, chunk by chunk, until it utterly broke me.

It hurt. A lot. There's no way to sugar coat any of it. I was in pain, and not physical pain, but pain in the heart and in the mind. Wishing to go back and fix things, or wishing that some things or even people didn't exist so as to spare me the pain. That I just wanted to finally have something to reward the road of pains and rejections. I don't say that to mean that after a certain number of crushes/rejections that the next girl that catches my fancy has to date me or like me back, but I just wanted a respite and to finally get what I had been pursuing.

My closest I ever got to a girl and to have external circumstances make it virtually impossible to actually have a relationship really broke me. And sure I sometimes do wish that I could have had a "perfect" life in which 2020 was "better". That I never was kicked out of school, that I got the girl I had come to love, that the Batfamily would still be together, and a whole assortment of things that would've been a perfect life. Let me be the first that it's been a long journey trying to recover and heal from my downfalls, my mistakes, and my errors. And let me also state for the record that it put a toll on my faith because I thought that things were adding up and lining up just right finally as 2019 came to a close, then to have this mess of 2020 happen. If nothing else, the coronavirus really threw a wrench into everything. Honestly, I don't even know what would have happened if I returned to Liberty for the months before spring break. Sure I could imagine I'd be progressing in my degree, and maybe I would be in a relationship. But then when this virus pandemic shuts down the country (well, close enough anyways) how would I have managed to maintain the relationship? Sure I had my means of connecting thanks to the internet. But as someone once told me, relationships need to have some physical closeness. 1,400+ miles was not close at all, and especially since travel restrictions would still be in place on the New York/New Jersey area. That and I also wouldn't have had much money saved up because I am terrible with finances and never really worked before this job at Jersey Mike's. Okay, so I have had the summer job with my dad, but that was only for a couple of summers and I haven't worked it in a few years, so any money I did have was stretching out from Christmas gifts, birthday gifts, money from Chinese New Year, etc.

I can say though that while everything I wrote thus far sounds so depressing and sad, that there is some good in everything. I've learned a lot about who I really am when conditions are stressing me out and causing my more negatively charged emotions to rise up, I've learned a lot about responsibility and learning how to interact with people, and I've been able to find a new hope in everything. Sure, this isn't the way I had planned 2020 to be. Sure I had so many other bigger and better plans, but there was so much I had unknowingly been blessed with that I never would have learned otherwise. Had I gone back to school, I wouldn't have learned about my true self when bad news arrives. Had I been at Liberty, I wouldn't have learned the true value of work and money because most of every dollar I had ever had or spent was through gifts and I had life so easy. Well, I still have life easy if you think about it.

And as far as the relationship thing goes, sure it sucks that I can't be in a relationship with the girl I loved and knowing that she had once loved me. But as they say that God always is working and is preparing something better and gives us these experiences to learn and grow from it, maybe there will be another day when some girl I like tells me she loves me again. Or maybe not, but if that's the case, then that's fine as well. I don't know my calling, but all that I do know is that all of these stresses and challenges are leading up to a life that I can do great things with. Every bump in the road is a stress test on me to see if I can adapt and overcome so that I can be the person I am needed to be. I don't know when that day will arrive and I realize that I am where I need to be, but maybe this is all just preparation for that time.

So with all that being said, I'm finding hope in the midst of everything that can so easily be seen as dark times and as times of not knowing where my life leads or amounts to. But that's why we have faith. And faith is knowing that believing is seeing and not seeing is believing. Faith is also walking blindly. After all, we are meant to live by faith and not by sight.

I know not what I will become or where I will go or who I will meet. But everything is happening for a reason. I need to trust the process and find faith that everything will be alright.

This isn't my end.