Happy New Year 2015!
Happy New Year! Here’s to a new beginning! Here’s to a new me! This is the favorite cliché line which most of the people use in this period. Social media is so full with such messages that it’s making me sick! It’s funny how people think that in one day you can become a completely other person. Can you really change like that? “The Old me of yesterday it’s gone, today the New me starts a New life!” So may I ask, how are you so new? What’s so new about your life? What’s so different from yesterday? I would really like to hear this answer! I’m wondering if someone really CAN answer this. Change doesn’t occur overnight. Change requires time. Change requires will. Change requires hardwork. Change involves feelings. And feelings come from experiencing. Experiencing doesn’t happen within’ a few hours which made the transit from the Old year to the New one.
But despite of this, here I am standing between 2 doors, one called 2014 which closes now, and one called 2015 which opens now. Here I am, in the middle of living the biggest dream of my life, reflecting on probably the most difficult year of my life. Here I am confused about the direction I should take from here on. Here I am trying to figure out what’s going on with my life. It’s hard to believe that I actually made it alive throughout this year. And I can’t believe it’s already over. I don’t know how to classify 2014. It was a curse and a blessing at the same time. Emotionally speaking, it was the most confusing, tiring, destructive. I’ve never been so emotionally twisted and hurt my entire life. And I’ve never thought my emotional instability problem can take me so close to insanity. Depression is a terrible disease and it’s so hard to fight it when you’ve lost your support. I don’t know how I survived, and I know it will take a lot of time to heal and that I’m not over it yet.
2014 started so normal, nothing seemed to predict how it will turn out to be. I wouldn’t have imagined that I will “celebrate” the end of it in such a different manner from always, so far away from home and from anything I know to be “normal”. I’m not the type to make New Year Resolutions, as I’m not the type to make plans, mainly because it never turns out to be the way I initially hoped. But if I knew something at the beginning of 2014 it was that I was still going to believe in my dream, for which I will continue to work hard. Indeed, I never felt so ambitious about it, I never felt that I wanted it so bad as in the beginning of 2014. And the 4 years of struggling for it eventually paid off in the beginning of March, when I was informed that I’ll can see my dream come true at the end of September. A news which came from nowhere. An announce which I didn’t expect to hear it so soon, so simple, so plain, so cold. The most surprising thing about it however was my reaction to it. I didn’t feel happy about it. Though I never wanted something so bad in my life and I always imagined the moment with tears of joy, the reaction was so different. And even now I can’t explain why.
The biggest dream of my life was to go to Japan, the country and culture so different from my own country, but the ones' I admired so much. It seems something so plain, but from a point of view of a girl lost in a society which doesn’t fit her way of seeing things, a country so far away from her dream land and with almost no financial possibilities, it was a big deal. Something almost impossible, as not only I at some point, but almost everyone around me thought the same. But even though, for the first time in my life I had a goal. I had something I really wanted to do. I had something I really liked doing and for which I had the biggest motivation. I didn’t care that it sounded foolish and that in the beginning almost no one believed in me, I still wanted to try, I still wanted to do my best, I still had the will to work hard. And everything because of an anime which change my entire way of understanding life. Everything because of a character which taught me to “never give up on my dreams!”.
I worked so hard in order to achieve that dream, but when finally the opportunity to fulfill it came to me, I didn’t feel almost anything. And I can’t help but feeling sorry for the betrayal I’ve done. Everyone who knew about my dream, hearing the news, told me “I’m happy for you!”. I don’t even remember from how many people I heard this line. It actually made me sad. Why I’m not feeling that happiness? I’m wondering if this came too late. I knew my goal, and I knew that to achieve it I have to work hard. Maybe it became just a habit, without me realizing it. Maybe I was starting to get tired waiting for something for which I had no guarantee it will ever happen. Maybe I grew up a bit and I started to move my eyes on something else. Or maybe I was too afraid to get happy too soon. I waited so much for this that if something would have gone wrong and my going to Japan would have got cancelled, that would have become the biggest disappointment of my life. And I don’t know if I could have coped with it. This, or maybe the fear was about something else. Getting out of the comfort zone!
Nevertheless, I finally did it. I arrived in Japan! I fulfilled my long time dream. And I really started to believe that if you really want something from your heart, eventually that thing will come to you sooner or later. But the price I had to pay for this dream was so big, that it almost killed me. Until now, my life was simple. If school/work went well, my love life went bad. And vice-versa. Including this dream in the school/work part, it’s easy to guess what was the problem of this year. I was always aware that for fulfilling this dream I’ll have to lose something important, but I never imagined it will cost so much. If I’d have to do a top, 2014 was the worst year for my love life. With 3 failures, the last of them being the most hurtful of my life, my emotions were twisted so many times, that now I don’t even know what I’m feeling and for who. Every time I got too close with someone, something went bad. And every time it was getting more hurtful. So much that the last time almost got me out of my mind.
It’s hard to take disappointments from the people you need the most, in the moments you need the most. And it’s hard to take disappointments in what you thought was your life calling. Coming to Japan, hadn’t started well from the beginning. Hearing comments from some colleagues that I’m not the one who should go, seeing my parents reaction which was more like I have done something bad for which they have to take the blame, and having me not feeling anything towards it. These were signs that it’s not going to be as well as I’ve always imagined. And so it was. Coming to Japan was very hard. Financially and emotionally. I’m a cold person, but I got so emotional before departing. I think I got scared. Scared of leaving my comfort zone. Going all by myself into the unknown. The spoiled me who couldn’t do anything by herself, tried for the first time in her life to take the life in her own hands. And damn, it’s so hard! It’s hard to accept the fact that the reality it’s not how you imagined it to be. Coming to Japan, suffering disappointment after disappointment, suffering the most painful heartbreak of my life, feeling like giving up everything, including my life…I finally understood how hard life really can be.
But I think all these happenings were supposed to be. In order for me to grow, to learn, to get stronger. I think people can only learn the hard way and I think that people can’t understand something until they experience it. And after all this, change can occur. And I’m glad I CHOSE to see the change in a positive light. Though it’s hard to say it, I’m glad for everything that happened to me this year. Because now, if I look back, I realize that within all these bad things, through all this pain and confusion, I got to feel one of the most beautiful feelings in the world: GREATFULLNESS! So many people supported me all this year! I rediscovered that humans can be so kind! I am a really blessed human! I have so many wonderful people around me! And sometimes I feel that I don’t need anything else in my life as long as they are a part of it!
I’m not good at showing my own feelings towards others. And I don’t know how I’ll ever repay all this kindness. But for the time being, for all those people believing in me, I’ll continue walking this life. I could have chosen to be all sober and grumpy, and surround myself with negativity. I could had let myself becoming controlled by the all negative emotions of which I didn't even know I was capable. Drowning in depression I could had thrown everything away, even my life. But I realized in time that all this feelings don't fit me. Negativity will only make me bitter. And I want to learn to enjoy the little beautiful things that life gives me, together with the bad ones. Because if it’s bad, than it’s a lesson.
So I think we have to be thankful for everything life throws at us.
I can’t say 2014 was a good year. But it wasn’t that bad either. It was just a normal one with a few more emotional blows. And because growing up means overcoming obstacles, I’d like to think that this year I managed to overcome my comfort zone. Sure the price for it was harder than I’ve ever imagined, but in the end I think it was worth the pain. If something changed in me this year is the fact that I became more courageous. And that I understood that in order to grow we have to know a bit of pain. And learning how to overcome it we can realize the beauty of life, which lies in the simplest things.
If I wish something for 2015 is peace. And more positivity. And with these 2 things in mind, gratefulness will come to us. And if you can feel grateful, than you can become HAPPY! Dear 2015! Please be good!