Every time I’m asked what my dream is, I’m not the kind of person who says “When i grow up, I want to be _____.” Instead, I say what I know I want to do: to provide the best life I can for my family. And what am I most thankful for? Life. And my capacity to love.
These I consider my treasures, the drive for me to reach my aspirations. Just yesterday, I have again climbed one step up, a huge one. Only seven of my Facebook friends know about this. Let the hidden message remain unrevealed for now.
Keep reading. Maybe you’ll find a clue.
I remember one quote from Grey’s Anatomy:
“A wise man once said – ‘You can have anything in life if you’re willing to sacrifice everything else for it.’ What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you’re willing to lose. Too often going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right. And letting someone in means abandoning the walls you’ve spent a lifetime building. Of course the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming. When we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick sides….or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us, and not the other way around, that’s when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.”
Oh, sacrifices. It gets harder if you’re like me who likes everything in order. Yes, I have planned to take that leap. I have calculated every step and measured every move I have to take to chart out the whole progress in on the biggest “white board” I found.
Yet, I forgot to make allowances for goodbyes. I didn’t realize how hard it is to swallow the fact that THIS could be the last time I’d share a meal with this person for a long while. Or that I can’t call my best friends to grab a drink at our favorite spot. Or that I can’t ask if a friend is free to watch a movie this weekend. Or that I can’t sneak up on my sister, play a trick on her and then run away laughing. Or that my mom won’t be asking me to wash dishes, fold clothes, put things back into place or do the rest of the household chores. Or that my dad isn’t around to ask if I want to see the latest Chinese action movie or a documentation of some ancient historic wonders.
Am I changing my mind about going? No. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time and I need to prove to myself that I can make it—that this is my shot at a much better life and I’m not about to let it slip away.
I hate saying goodbye but hopefully, I’ll be earning enough to be saying hello again.
P.S. Stay tuned for my biggest announcement early next week. It’s really going to be, as Barney Stinson of How I Met Your Mother says, legen—
About Rochkirstin Santos-Sioco
Health and technology freak. Food and lifestyle blogger with a large appetite for food and travel.
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