Wrapping up the 2010s, and my second decade, with a long-ass essay. You’ve been warned.

 

The past ten years have been a blur, to be honest. And the changes that came with it, especially the ones from the last three years, are sure to be long-enduring. The oldies say that your twenties are essentially your formative years, where you’re supposed to find your true self (or something like that), the self that’s going to see you through for the rest of your life. And that’s what I think happened…and eventually culminated on what I think is a very dizzying 2019.

 

The decade opened with me wrapping up my premed years. I was finishing up with my Medical Technology Internship, poised to begin this long and arduous journey in my dream Medical School, one dream that I crafted as a naïve kid. Back then, I was naïve, very unsure of myself, and thus determined to prove my worth. I took a hard hit when I failed to graduate cum laude in my premed despite all my best efforts (I juggled academics, student journalism, and extra-editorials. An ordinary premed student normally dealt with only one thing. School was life but Varsi was life-r back then hahahahuhu. Social life equated to V.), stellar marks, and Dean’s Lists in my early years no thanks to my internship grades. We (that is, my Varsi friends) always maintained that there was more to life than grades and the life experiences we gained together is worth more than a medal in my graduation. Looking back, that proved to be true as the life skills I learned and the subtle personality changes thanks to my V years helped me survive the challenges of the coming years. But in the deepest recesses of my mind and heart, I still felt that I was deprived of something I knew I deserved. And so in the coming years, I’ve always harbored this lingering sense of inadequacy. That I could have done more. And so I toiled over my early med school years, thinking that if I poured my all into my education, I could somehow make the steep tuition fees worth it for my parents, maybe graduate with honors, and probably prove my worth.

 

And so the years rolled by slowly. I eventually graduated from med school, without honors, the oral revalida driving a permanent hedge between me and that elusive medal (because this time, my grades were waaaay more than enough for that cum laude). You could just imagine my frustration. I breezed through internship and toiled over the Physician Licensure Exams then grudgingly entered my dream residency program and hospital. Residency was a huge catalyst to where I am and who I am right now (the entire experience warrants a separate long-ass post which I’ve done before so I’ll stop now).

 

Which leads us to now. Starting out with me coming fresh out of residency, 2019 basically is a sequel to 2018’s plot twists and turns. For me, it’s a year of conviction. Of holding on tightly to the lost me I’ve finally found last year and never ever letting go of her. It’s a year of decluttering, of finding lost or unknown aspects of myself and letting go of the unnecessary. It’s when I ultimately realized my own worth and thus the need to fight for it. When I uncovered my true strengths and weaknesses. When I finally could make new dreams and aspirations.

 

It’s a vicious cycle, discussing about the year that was 2019 and the decade that was the 2010s. I’d only give everyone dizzy spells if I tried to write about it all. I guess it’d simply be easier to jot down a short list of all the learnings I’ve gained these past few months. Here they are:

1. It all starts with yourself. Basically, self-reliance is the most important thing that I’ve learned in 2018 that was reinforced to me in 2019. I’ve learned to do things on my own and NOT WAIT for anyone to do things for me. I’ve decided to put my own fate in my own hands and find ways to get what I want/need. This year, I’ve found the conviction that I didn’t really need to beg others to do my own bidding if they didn’t want to help me.

 

2. You shouldn’t base your self-worth on others, may it be people, achievements, or things, all of which can easily change or disappear. For this year, I’ve learned to accept all of myself, including my flaws. If you don’t accept yourself and stand up for yourself, who will?

 

3. Set boundaries. I used to be way too nice for my own good. I’d like to think of myself as a team player. I’d like to think that I’m the easiest person to seek help from. I compromise a lot, usually at my own expense. It got so bad that during residency, I usually get the short end of the stick, getting reprimanded for things that wasn’t my sole fault with the other person getting away with it, doing things that wasn’t my job pala, or basically madalas nagugulangan. And then when the time comes that you’re the one in need, no one’s even there. That’s still the case sometimes but for the past few years, I’ve learned to set boundaries and assert myself. Because if you don’t do that, people just tend to walk all over you and get away with it. So yeah, nowadays, I say NO more frequently than I ever did before.

 

4. “When one can see no future, all one can do is the next right thing,” and yes, that was directly lifted from Frozen II. More than setting boundaries, stick to the right thing. And I’m sure you’ll never go wrong.

 

5. Don’t wait. For this year, I’ve learned to live my best life even while alone. I’ve learned not to suspend my life in search for something/someone that I’m not even sure would come. Hahaha. I seek my own reasons to be happy when there are none. If nobody minds your happiness, get it for yourself. And I see nothing wrong with that.

 

6. Don’t give your trust that easily.

 

7. I guess one of the most important things I’ve learned is that mistakes might just be the most important teacher of all. I used to think that the most successful people are those who have achieved things left and right. Those who have consistently garnered various accolades from doing things right most of the time. I used to base my self-worth from the number of things that I got right. In med school and internship, there were less expectations and thus there less emphasis on the wrongs and the right things you did/answered were more blatantly seen. But when I started residency training, the right things came in far and few. The mistakes were rising in number and my self-worth rose in indirect proportion.

 

But I realized that there’s a different kind of strength from committing mistakes, rising from it, and learning from it. As a samplex-based learner ever since med school, I’ve finally realized that I thrived on making mistakes. Because in these mistakes, I learned not only what the right and wrong answers were, I also learned how best to handle the impact of these mistakes. And so from then on, I’ve had a more nuanced approach towards making mistakes. I welcome them now as opportunities to better myself. And with that, I learned to be kinder and accepting that mistakes are inevitable and part of the learning process and that how we handle these mistakes are much more important.

 

 

One thing I’ve also learned from this decade is that there is a time for everything. Like any other girl, I’ve always dreamed of meeting the one. For the most part of this decade, I’ve mistakenly chased after someone who, looking back, is definitely NOT the one for me.

 

I’ve learned not to rush things and to never settle. That maybe the years that passed were truly preparing me for what’s to come. It did occur to me that should he have come in my twenties, things would have been a mess because I didn’t really know better. I couldn’t truly give myself since I didn’t have a good grasp of who I was anyway.

 

But yeah, just like any other girl, I’d still wish to find the one. Hopefully, he’d be close to who I hope he could be—my best friend, the one who’d truly accept me for who I am, encourage me to dream, and help me achieve our dreams. Simple lang naman. Pero ang hirap hanapin. Hahaha.

 

 

And so I start my fourth decade of life brimming with optimism. Although excited of what is to come, I remain hopeful that I’d be blessed with good fortune in the coming years. And as I ponder upon things that I would wish for, I suddenly realized how truly blessed I have been for the past ten years:

 

1. I fulfilled a childhood dream of becoming a doctor, an internist at that (and an aspiring Cardiologist, at the moment).
2. Gained more independence (and travelled to ten countries, a lot of them alone).
3. A family who’s been stable and accomplished in their own way, who’s provided the strongest support for me these past few years.
4. A chain of events and a cluster of people who’s allowed me to grow into a person that I can actually love.
5. Getting into programs that have helped me become a better physician for my patients. I couldn’t have asked for a better family than my Cardio Family at the moment, who have accepted me for what I am and allowed me to spread my wings so that I could fly higher than I ever did before.

 

And so now, instead of wishing for more, I guess I now am wishing that I could be satisfied of what I have right now. I now realize my privilege and to ask for more seems to be asking for too much. I was about to fixate on the fact that I can’t seem to find a suitable partner but now that seemed to be a moot point. While it is most definitely out of my hands, it just seems to be forceful to push things right now. And it might also be because I’m not even meant to find someone pala. Hahahaha. And so for now, I have simply resolved to focus on loving, caring, and cultivating the things that I do have now.

 

Ready to face the coming years ahead!