(Always) Looking for my ray of sunshine.

I've always been the gal with the wide smile and the boisterous laugh who never fails to infect people with my unfailing optimism and overall happy vibes.

Which is why it's so ironic that underneath that, I am actually a girl drowning in drama.

Things are not so great at home.  Conservative parents who think they are liberal.  Parents who've stayed together all these years (almost 40), but it's obvious that they would be loads happier if they separated.  Financial problems.  Attitude problems.  Graduation.  Lack of a job.  Lack of opportunities for a job in this country.  Parents breathing down your back, coming up with all these suggestions for you to follow that obviously did not work for them.  Parents who claim to know better.  Not being able to express yourself for fear of being misunderstood.  Never-ending guilt trips.  Lack of motivation.  Lack on inspiration.  You get the gist.

Imagine that you are doing everything you can right now, given the circumstances, to make your life better.  Updating your portfolio/resume, pulling contacts, sending sample work to anyone who wants to see them... I stay in my room because I don't want to go out and spend money I don't have.  Regardless of that, all the people in my home see is that my life is becoming sedentary and that the reason I am getting chest pains is because I am always on my computer being unproductive.  What really gets me upset—and I don't know if they know how hurtful they sound—is the way they compare me to my brother at my age whom my dad kicked out.  He was always at home, had no work...basically same as me right now.  The only difference is I am working my ass off to get out of here and all he did back then was spend day and night playing computer games.

During Father's Day, after I greeted him and sat down at the breakfast table, while I was slowly breathing and clutching my chest (I've been getting chest pains lately), he proceeded to read all his text messages from people, greeting him Happy Father's Day.  He read my older sister's message out loud and then he proceeded to say how proud he is of how his children are successful...soon after telling me that if I am not careful, I will sink into permanent bumhood.  "Don't wait till you're thirty to get moving with your life."

At that point I wanted to just burst into tears and just...I don't know... unload...but I can't because it was his day.  I can't walk out to stop hearing it to protect myself either because that would be rude.  So I had to take it like a man and suck it up, chest pains and all.

There are days when I feel like my heart is about to explode, at the same time feeling unnecessary guilt that I shouldnt be feeling this way.  I keep feeling that I don't have a right to express myself because like what my mom has told me (when I tried opening up to her), I always got what I wanted and needed from them...but it's not the material things that concern me.  They don't realize how badly, badly discouraged I am.  I tried telling my mom and she just told me motherhood statements, generic advice one gives out even if they know you already know it, all for the sake of having something to say.  It doesn't really help relieve me from anything

I'm so tired and yes, stressed.

But you know, despite all that, despite all the heartache that I seem to carry on my shoulders, including the problems my loved ones go through (friends fighting, couples splitting up, etc...), I am amazed that at the end of it all, I still find a way to be hopeful about everything.  That everything will work itself out and that everything will be all right.  That even if my family is slowly becoming the people who understand me the least, I still have my friends and significant other to put things into a more proper and positive perspective.  That as long as you know you are doing everything you can do to get yourself out of the hole you are currently trapped in, as long as you are confident that you can get out, good things will happen.

So yeah.  Hopeful music helps.  Hopeful movies help.  Hopeful letters help.  Hopeful thoughts help.

Yesterday I got two emails from two different companies offering me to take the next step, to see if I qualify.  I don't have the jobs yet, but out of nowhere, these two representations of hope just came at the exact moment that I needed my ray of sunshine.



And now the smile everyone has grown so accustomed to is back on my face. I am armed with even more hope now, and it feels awesome.

<3