In a blink of an eye

I have been saying that time flew by so fast for so long now. It is a sign that I am growing older since my perception of time is changing. But the truth is that it never fails to surprise me just how much time passed by when I finally stopped to think about it.

Just earlier I was reminiscing about my thoughts when I was graduating senior high school. I was not in a good place then. I was in a toxic relationship and my head was full of thoughts of how I could disappear from this world.

I remember that the green toga of our school is the main reason why I managed to stay alive even when I did not have the motivation to do so.

4 years have passed since then

From that naive little girl who thought she could save someone who does not want to be saved, I became someone with clear boundaries. No longer was I saying yes to things I do not want to do for fear of upsetting someone. I do not tolerate that kind of self-torture any longer.

From someone who only had thoughts of death, I became someone who looks forward to the future. No longer was I afraid of being alive, I am now having fun figuring out the things that I want to do for the rest of my life.

The truth is the years that passed by changed me a lot. Looking back on the thoughts I had when I was younger made me cringe so hard but I am also learnin to forgive myself. I was not the best version of myself then. I hurt people, I got hurt. I ruined friendships, some friendships ruined me. But throughout years of self-reflection I am finally able to admit that I was not without fault in the things that happened.

I think the best part of growing is also the worst part which is recognizing the toxicity I had when I was younger. Even now, I still have a lot of things to unlearn but I am steadily making progress.

3 years passed

It has almost been 3 years since I last saw my blockmates. The pandemic happened rightin the middle of our semester and I remember laughing with my classmates then thinking that we will see each other after a few weeks of well deserved rest. I did not imagine that it would take years before we could even hope to meet each other again. Until now, we are still waiting for the memo to give us the go signal to go back to limited face to face classes for our thesis subject. But I am hopeful that it will happen.

The years have not been kind to my perception to my classmates. I was actually starting to miss them but then they went and do something that breaks the illusion I had of what kind of people they were. The same kind of people who keeps spouting about how everyone will graduate together is the very same type of people who would their best o trick you into getting a score of 0 just because they can. And then these very same people would find it funny, not caring how such simple score could have been the last straw to someone's decision to discontinue their life.

The truth is I wanted to have friends but when the aforementioned events unfolded, I withdraw from everyone again. I am not content with my small circle of people that I know I can fully trust.

I just maybe I expected a bit too much of them. After all, everyone was affected during these years of pandemic so I had thought at least that they would develop a sense of compassion and empathy. And maybe, I had believed they were genuine when they said they all wanted us to graduate together.

I am not sure what is right or wrong. I am unsure whether my heightened emotions were a direct cause of bipolar. All I know was that I was already hanging on such a super thin rope.

My achievement that day was getting out of bed to answer their quiz on their report, only to see the 0 mark despite the fact that I had taken notes and listened to their report.

Then I went back and saw that their instructions were to write the wrong answers.

In that moment my mind went blank and I was just "huh, the world must not really like my presence".

It is my fault that I did not read the instructions. I can fully say that. But I would never expect these people to pull out a high school trick during difficult times like these. We have OJT and classes. It is a full load of 8AM to 9PM cycle. Andwering the quiz should have been a productive break from all the chaos of academic life and yet they think it is funny to do that.

When the backlash of it became too much for them, they decided to retract the quiz. I guess they realized no one find their joke funny aside from their own circle of friends.

But what those people will never know was how close I was to ending it all because it had almost been the last push for me.

Still, it was no one's resppnsibility. But that moment made me think to myself that it would be nice if people could act kindly and want everyone to succeed instead of just favoring their own friends.

Can you imagine a world where everyone just focused on doing their best while also wishing the best for others? It sounds like a fairytale but I hope that that fantasy can happen in real life as well.

Closing words

It has been a while since I last posted. I won't make any promises about bein active again or anything. My focus right now is on my academic requirements so blogging will have to wait.

I also made this article to share that my sister, Manju, might start using this account to post again.