Are you holding onto something that you need to let go of?
What's stopping you?
When you asked me this it was like a bullet pierced through my conscience. This is a question that I can relate to and to an extent, have been simultaneously thinking about and running away from. To answer your question is to stand under the glaring spotlight of reality when I preferred the vague outlines in the muted backstage light. Yet I think, it is time to face the music.
I am holding on to a dream. A dream that was once surreal, then real, then crushed, then buried, only to resurface recently to haunt me once again. This dream goes by the name of Minerva.
Aside from being the name of the goddess of wisdom, Minerva is the name of a school I really, really wanted to go to. When I heard about it, I thought to myself, this is it, this is where I belong. I stopped searching then because I knew I had found The School. I mean, can you point me to a school that is more me than Minerva? 7 countries all over the world in 4 years, experiencing different cultures, living in a community of diverse, inspired, enthusiastic individuals, while broadening my mind and studying any topic of my choosing. You might as well have named the school Celine for its "screw societal norms, I will carve my own path and I will achieve greatness" kind of mindset.
Sadly, reality is harsh. I wonder if this was the defining moment of the end of my childhood. As children, we dream, and the world is our oyster. The future was so uncertain but that was what was exciting about it; the world was still full of possibilities. A force so unstoppable, so sure that we were going to take the future into our stride. We could be whatever we want to be, do whatever we wanted to do. We couldn't wait to grow up to conquer the world.
I think I became an adult when I realised that that was not true at all. Children dream dreams of grandeur but adults, upon coming to terms with their increasingly familiar new friend Reality, are more ready to come to terms with mediocrity. I think this is why, when I was younger and heard stories about people working a job different from their childhood ambition, I would be very devastated. Why didn't these people fight harder to chase their dreams? I would be indignant and swore that this would never happen to me. But now I am older and wiser and I understand. And I never thought this would happen to me but I am a victim of such a predicament too. Having a dream but not being able to fulfill it due to financial constraints, parental objection, Reality.
Eighteen year old me would have shook her head at Twenty year old me. But I would not rebuke Eighteen year old me for being deluded or unrealistic or delusional. No, she just has the hope and the spirit that has since been trashed and broken. Yes, my spirit is broken.
Minerva is really a dream I need to let go of. The sooner I forget it, the sooner I move on, the better it will be for me. I am doing okay here. I have many things going on for me. I have forged many meaningful friendships and am actively serving in several capacities. I am not living the dream but I'm doing okay. Just that a part of me still wonders what it would be like to go to San Francisco. Just that everytime I am forced to study, memorize, regurgitate, I feel like puking and I feel like I am doing myself a disservice for putting myself through this. Just that sometimes I feel utterly mediocre where I am now and I dream of Minerva all over again.
And what's stopping me from letting go of Minerva? I think the appropriate question to construe, in light of all that I have just written is what's stopping me from chasing Minerva like a Mr Bean chasing that patch of sunlight across the whole country. I know Minerva will define my future career, probably the rest of my life. It will bring me to where no law school can hope to bring me. It will give me a platform to climb so much higher. Where Minerva will bring me, is probably beyond my dreams. When they say that the human mind is irrational, I would be inclined to agree. What here has so much gravitational pull that makes me so so reluctant to leave?
But really. What's stopping me from letting go of Minerva? It's many things. It's the fear that, if I stay here I will drown in this cesspool of mediocrity. So even the hope of being able to attend, even if its a 5% chance is enough to keep me holding on. it's the knowledge that, if I don't do this now I will never get another chance to experience something similar ever again, and the days of my would-be Future would never materialize. I could rationally reason out the pros of staying here too, which I have done so and continue doing so to reassure myself. But the nights where I relax my facade and the defences I have built to keep myself afloat and there I know, that a part of me will always beat for Minerva.
I really do need to bid farewell to this dream of mine soon, so that I can truly focus on my life here and make the best of it. I am excited but apprehensive at the plans that God might have in store for me in the next, say five years. I hope that the future is still as unpredictable and exciting as I imagined it to be a few years ago. I even hope that the future could be beyond what I can imagine.
After all, I am but a child, I will always be a child. Children dream.
