The first quarter of this year had been very eventful for me. Aside from the general turning-over-a-new-leaf, early this year was when both of my parents left their forties and I turned 27, and when Jay and I celebrated three years of being together. It was also when I achieved some career milestones – sealing two research footprints and reaching the halfway mark of my PhD program. I have so much to say, being the reflective person that I am, for each of these milestones but how do I write without being redundant? How do I write something relatable? The learnings, stories, and emotions have been scattered in my head for a long time and it’s only today that I realized why I haven’t been able to write – because an adult life is not anymore a box divided into love, family, and career. It’s rather a continuous thread that entwines all aspects of our lives that has to be viewed altogether.

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Until I was eighteen, I used to think that actors past 25 are old in a sense that they should stop acting in romantic comedy movies because 25 year-olds are not charming anymore. Don’t shoot me, I was naïve. Now that I am 27, past the 'expiration' age according to my younger self, I still do not feel any different than when I was 22, at least in the context of youth. I am healthy and fit, I still get carded at the liquor store when I don’t wear makeup, and aside from the lost cheek fat, I generally feel no difference. What drastically changed was my life outside the skin-deep markers of age. Now, I have more freedom in almost all aspects of my life – financial, social and personal. My parents have stopped interfering, or even at least commenting, on my life decisions and they have long held me accountable for the outcomes of my choices. I moved out when I was 24. I earn and manage my finances. I pay my own rent, buy my groceries and pay for my insurance. Coming from a very conservative and protective family, this is a drastic and welcome change that my 18-year-old self would have never seen coming.

You see, it all sounds exciting until it becomes overwhelming or in other words, “adulting”. That dreaded stage of our 20’s when life is suddenly full of responsibilities, expectations, and judgments, and never about enjoying our long-awaited freedom anymore. I still want to feel young, energetic, and free from lifelong commitments and yet life shoves too many overwhelming responsibilities and sets impossible life deadlines that, according to society, I should have met by now.

It doesn’t mean that the society is the only one at fault for my adulting fiasco. To illustrate, if my life is a biopic, all my travel and vacation memories will not be part of the highlights. Instead, it will show what I think are the best versions of myself: hardworking and motivated student, a good daughter to her parents, a career-oriented woman, and a loving and supportive partner. I used to measure my self-worth by my achievements and never by my efforts. So last year, when life demands suddenly became unmanageable and goals got unattainable, my sense of self-worth was shaken and so was my mental health. I had episodes of depression. My desire to meet my unrealistic expectations heightened my anxieties. I became too anxious towards my health. My homesickness turned to excessive worrying. I hated myself so I poured all my time and attention towards my relationship that eventually turned to unhealthy overdependence. I was a mess.

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Counseling and self-help materials guided me on how to give the same love, compassion, and sympathy that I give to other people towards myself without feeling narcissistic and selfish. It’s the same love acknowledges my own achievements, no matter how big or small, even when the only achievement is to get out of the house to fight depression. It’s the same self-love that made me proud of my position in academia – despite the mockery and ignorance of other people about what I do. I learned that for as long as I give my best in whatever I do and believe that in good faith, it will somewhat contribute to this world, then I should be proud of myself.

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They say, people who do not love at all, not even himself, do not fear anything. I knew that love is at the core of all my fears and anxieties but while they all came from good intentions, it made me unhealthy. I was not ready to process the new layers of life that I had experienced. Ones that only come with age and maturity. I never doubted my love for my parents, but it’s only now that I can finally understand their love. Parents have their own dreams, feelings, and ambitions that do not necessarily revolve around their children but it’s their selflessness and love that made them set aside their individualities. Perry and Lily are people before they are my parents. I grow up as much as they grow old. While that fact still wrenches my heart, it is a reality that I have come to terms with only now that I am older. 

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Perhaps the culmination of my learnings on love and life is my relationship with Jay. Out of all the things told about love, this I proved true: relationships need as much work as love for it to work. We could have given up a long time ago. It was a time when being single was far more practical and convenient than spending all our salaries searching for every possible way to stay together in a country that neither of us calls home. For Jay, whose home country shines brighter than where he moved to, he really had no reason to stay. And after countless failures, thousands of dollars and a surgery, safe to say we had all the logical reasons to end our relationship. But the simple reason why we held on was also the main reason why our relationship began: we really love each other. I was certain that I will never find another love like ours and I have no reason to find it in someone else – period.

I believe in fate. Fate is the reason why we met in the first place. It was fate that aligned our lucky stars and opened both our PhD programs in the same city. And it was also fated that we both have the most supportive parents who never held us back. But just as much as the hands of God worked in our lives, it was also our hard work that led us here. Where we are right now is the sum of all our efforts - from persistent applications, ardent long-distance communications, and daily language lessons, down to our commitment to stay together through thick and thin. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but if you're fighting for the right person, believe me when I say you'll never think twice. 

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One thousand three hundred words were written, and yet I still don’t know the secret to a good life.  I don't know the secret to a lasting marriage. Twenty-seven years later and yet I am still clueless about this world. But what I do know by now is I should live more ardently and passionately each day. That I should stop pursuing a happy life, but rather a life full of meaning. Twenty-seven more years later, I hope I can say I lived rather well.