Have you ever felt like everything has been taken away from
you? Have you ever felt that everyone has turned against you? Have you ever
felt that you’ve been left alone in this world? Have you ever felt that even
with a lot of effort, you never succeeded? Have you ever felt that your life
was not worth living? It is undeniable that we have felt this way at some point
of our lives. I, myself have felt this way numerous times in my life. I kept on
asking myself when I was in the beginning of my teenage years, is my life worth
living?
First, in my elementary school years, I sometimes feel happy
as if I had everything, but then sometimes I felt that I lost everything. I
seem to forget what kind of person I was at that time, but I was most of the
time bullied and I was on my own. I had a best friend, but she sort of left me
for another friend. It was really painful to be honest with, I felt really
lonely afterwards. I wandered around in school alone; I guess I was a total
loser at that time. I asked my parents to transfer me to another school after
graduating from elementary school, hoping that I could make a change. My
parents granted my wish and transferred me to another school, which is my
current school. At first, I thought it was a total mess. I thought that it made
no difference. But then I realized in my current school, I was the horrible one
who caused people to hate me, so I changed. I don’t know what my friends think
of me now, but I think I was a much better person than when I was in 7th
grade. I can see that some people still don’t accept me, but at least now there
are people who like me, as in; my personality. In 8th grade I was a
total pain in the ass, as I recounted my days at that time. I guess EVERYONE
gave up on facing me! I was horrible! Dear readers, if you were there at that
time, you would have hated me too. I don’t even know why I was like that, but I
guess it was because of something that I held back when I was in elementary
school. I guess I was hated in elementary school because of that.
Second, it’s about my love life. It stinks, a lot actually.
I had a crush on someone when I was in 7th grade and it was a total
disaster. He was in a different school and one of my schoolmates turned out to
be his kindergarten schoolmate. I told my schoolmate that I liked that guy and
not long after that I had a fight with that friend and my secret got spilled
out. I have never heard of that guy ever again, till now. I was a total weirdo
when I was in grade 7 dude, I’m sorry for messing you up. I had a crush on
another boy when I was in 9th grade, and he was someone who was 1
year older than me. He goes to the same school as I do, but he’s in the
international unit and meanwhile I was in the national plus unit. The way we
got to know each other was weird though, we got to know each other via twitter,
through direct messages. I knew about this boy because one of my friends in 8th
grade at that time had a crush on him, and… before you know it, I had a crush
on him too. He was the first boy who I had a crush on that likes me back, so we
sort of got really close, but then after he graduated we drifted far away, and
we don’t see each other since he now studies in a different country, or even
message each other anymore. I couldn’t get over him till the end of grade 10.
He was the first person that I couldn’t get over for nearly 2 years. Since that, I was too afraid to fall for
somebody. But because the heart wants what it wants, I fell for someone, someone
I can never have. (That someone is Ed Sheeran, just kidding.)But to be honest,
the more that I look at him, those feelings just get stronger, and by the way,
I’m not even close to that person. I hope that I get over it soon.
Third, it’s about my studies. I was a really smart student
when I was in elementary school. I remembered that my parents were really happy
when I got a gold medal for English language because I got the highest score
during finals. That happened in 2nd grade. I still got silver medals
for Mathematics and Science since I was the most improved one, but in 4th
grade it was a total downhill for me. My grades dropped drastically, and it
became worse when I was in 5th grade. Thank God my grades started
going up again in 6th grade. I experienced the downhill on my grades
again when I was in grade 8. It improved again when I was in grade 9 and it
kept going up till the end of grade 10. Since this year, I felt that my grades
are dropping again, because the exams were really hard, even though I studied
till very late at night.
Sometimes when I think of these three things, I feel like my
life is only made up of so many mistakes that I can’t even remember anything I
did right. Maybe I have never done right once in my entire lifetime.
Or maybe it’s just me, having a twisted view about everything,
never being grateful for the good things that happen because I was too focused
on the bad things that happened to me. Let’s try looking at my problems in a
positive view;
If I did not actually encounter those hardships in my life,
I don’t think I would be the person that I am now. I became stronger because of
the pain I suffered; I was given the opportunity to change and become a better
person than I was before. I felt that karma was not a bitch, other a teacher to
me. Without karma, I would not be able to feel what it feels like to be bullied
by other people, and think twice before bullying someone. I know it is
different from what people say about karma, but having a different point of
view is not wrong right? This leads me to my next point, about accepting
differences. I might have heard that some of my peers dislike me because I have
a difference in acting and thinking. Well, I might have some mental
abnormalities, I think of the most random things, and I realize it. But is that
something that’s bad? I can’t change that because I was born that way. I might
be able to change myself in terms of attitude and personality, but I can’t
change brains. I know there is something wrong in how I think, but I still try
to make the best of it. Because of my slight abnormality, I was able to accept
people who have the similar problems as I do.
I live in Indonesia, but I am considered a double minority
because my race is Chinese and my religion is Catholic. Because of being in the
minority side, I was able to accept every other race and religion and in my
country and I learned to treat them equally. The second reason is; if you were
the one who ran the country, would you want your citizens to discriminate one
another and be racist towards each other? I don’t think anyone wants that. If
racism and discrimination didn’t happen, our world would never have war, I
guess.
Well, about my love life, I pretty much can’t do anything
about it because I am still very young. I make mistakes. I fall in “love”. Why
the quotation marks? Because love is not a real thing according to me, for now (I’m
still 16, duh.). I’ll just let everything flow for now. I guess I will find the
real love when the time comes for me. I’m not going to look for it, but I’ll
just let it find me, for the case of relationships. Currently the real love
only consists within my family and those who are the closest to me, those who
were there for me in my hardships, and those who just accept me for being me.
Thank you so much… Even though I feel like I sometimes took you for granted.
In terms of education, to be honest, I sometimes thought
that I wanted to give up on school, but when I think again, I was fortunate
enough to have parents who could send me to any kind of school that I want. I
thought of the children who wanted to go to school but couldn’t because their
parents did not have the money to do so. Don’t give up on school and just
don’t. Opportunities to achieve your dreams only come once in your life. Don’t
waste it. Just don’t.
If people say “forget your past”, don’t listen to them. Even
though it will sometimes haunt us, it made us learn a good lesson which because
of your past, you made an opportunity from it to become a greater person.
Now if I ask myself again; “Is my life worth living?” I’ll
say yes.
2015 was a great year for me. I hope you feel the same way
as I did.
Thank you for everything that happened in 2015, I hope 2016
will be another great year!
Goodbye 2015, hello 2016!
Lots of love,
Felicia Herman
