Saved from Drowning

For those of you who landed here to find a light short read, I must warn you that this post will not be one. It's quite a long, personal snippet of my life that made me who I am today....


*********************************


Have you ever experienced a dark period in your life when you wake up in the morning knowing that today will be the same as the day before, and that there's no chance anything will change tomorrow? As if life is a permanently repeating cycle that eats you alive even as you breathe? I did. Not too long ago.

Being a diligent student since childhood, my parents had always expected a lot from me. They encouraged me to do the best I could and I must say that most of my hard work did pay off. The applauds and expectations went on all the way to my adulthood, and they had me believing that chasing success will be a piece of cake. After I finished my education, I was fired up and determined to put it to good use. I just couldn't wait to carve my own success on stone. But then, I was also in love, and to no surprise, I got married two years later.

That's when everything changed. Don't get me wrong, we were happy. We still are. Going through life together was a different kind of excitement back then.  We had high hopes that building our family was going to be a wonderfully rewarding journey, and when our daughter arrived, life was nothing short but perfect. But little did I know that life had a different plan for me. So many things happened so fast. The economy went downhill, we worked hard, made some bad choices, worked even harder, and one day I suddenly realized that I was no longer that woman who wanted the best out of herself. I was just a wife and a mother of two little children who had only one thing in her mind... and that is to survive. What's even more sad was that at this point I was so faraway from my dream. I no longer drew, no longer painted, used most of my time taking care of the children and working on any kind of project just to put extra money in our pocket. I was miserable and lost.

This is a sketch I found just yesterday. One which I drew one night when everything felt so heavy and hard to bear. I remember feeling numb, wondering who I was, what I wanted and why life had been so cruel. I was mad at life for taking away my dreams, and turning me into an empty shell with a hollow heart. As much as I tried to hide it from my family during the day, I knew that the night would always come to take my mask away.

One day, after the children were asleep, I sat on the dining table and began doodling on a piece of paper that was lying there. What had started as a doodle became a sketch and before I knew it, I had drawn on a number of papers all the way to dawn. Something had set me free and it was an incredible feeling. After that night, I started to draw again. I used the spare time I had, waking up as early as 3 in the morning just so I could draw. It was something I looked forward to everyday and I remember feeling so fortunate to have seen light again after such a long period of darkness.

And so it was clear to me. That my passion had saved me from drowning. After all the things I had been through, I was liberated by the one thing that has been living in me all my life. It never died and now I know that it never will.


*********************************


Dearest friends,

If you're wondering why I decided to share this with you, it's because I know that life is precious. And that no matter how hard we try to live life as planned, sometimes you just end up so far flung from it. I have learned the hard way that passion is the key to living and to never give up on it whenever you feel let down. It's essential that you stick to the one plan that does actually work perfectly. And that is to believe.

Thank you so much for sticking around all the years I've been here in blogland. Your friendship is one of the things I am truly blessed with. This blog has given me a drive to keep trying and running after my dream. And to see that life is sweet, even when the sun hides behind the clouds.


Warmest hug,