To Dreams

One thousand, one hundred seventy-five days. One thousand, one hundred seventy-five days ago I wrote a post, Live, Laugh, Leap. At the time, I wanted to write something related to those three words and about dreams and ended my post with "I'll never stop climbing until I reach my dream." Little did I know what it meant to me and my auntie.

This past Saturday, my uncle and auntie stopped by to drop off some stuff and one of the things was a graduation gift for me. One of the gifts included a glass floral box with few charms and keychain inside. There was one other piece in the box that says "Believe in your dreams." I completely forgot but three years ago, the day before I posted it, my auntie bought this little gem for me about dreams. What were the odds of my auntie and me thinking about dreams merely a day (or less) apart? What are the odds of my auntie telling me this three years ago and to remember about it three years later that I forget? 100%.

It's so funny how life works. Everything comes back to a full circle. Just a few weeks ago, I was in a funk for weeks. Feeling like my purpose in life is gone, purposeless. Not knowing what I'll do for my future with the whole pandemic. Applying for entertainment jobs, getting turned down or receiving no response. Even when production studios are open again, I don't know how long it would take me to feel safe to be actually working in-person with others. Film and TV production resumed on June 12, this past Friday, and honestly, I don't know how I feel about that.

I questioned my choices in life, most importantly my dream: to help others through storytelling with the entertainment medium. Was it a pipedream? Is it always going to be just a dream? I asked my family what were their dreams and two out of four (including me) had a dream that was related to career. It made me think maybe I was too ambitious, maybe I need to shoot for a dream in a different area. For a while, this was the funk I was in. Wondering, questioning the meaning of life, the idea of what dreams are.

As I continued the job hunt, I realized at some point, my dream can still be my dream but I need to change it. Adjust it. Look at it from a different perspective. I have adjusted my dream, my purpose, in lieu of the pandemic. It's not giving up, quitting, it's repositioning a dream to adjust in the climate one is in. My original dream is always going to be there, but for now, this repurposed dream is what I need in the current state of the world.

I went back to read the post I wrote a little more than three years ago. It's crazy to see how far I've come, how I really tried to live by the saying I created: Live, Laugh, Leap. Each L had its own struggle. How the little details I included in the post, I know and remember the memories (for the most part). My dream did change a bit since I wrote it then and I definitely came a long way in my journey with Titan TV (technically Titan Communications). These four years have been not easy, from my anxiety attacks, standing up for what I believe in, to overthinking, having cancer hit home for me as I know four people with different forms of it in the course of four years affected, and adjusting to the unconventional senior year in college in a stay at home state for the last few laps. Dreams are part of how we keep going, knowing there is hope. I will keep chasing after my dream and will make new dreams to run towards.

Thank you, Auntie Sharon and Uncle Tommy, for the wonderful gifts that touched my heart and for reminding me how powerful believing in dreams are. And of course, the support! To dreams!

P.S. Please excuse my lack of parallelism in this post and lack of posting (been difficult expressing how I feel lately with words).