Almost Forty - Failure

I have come to terms with myself being the one who fails at almost everything. Here I am, old, gray hairs starting to outnumber the dark ones, lines start to show on my face, and here I am, have not achieved anything at all.

I set goals. I had dreams. I worked to achieve them. But something along the way seems to stop me from getting those things that I want. I remember writing in one of my journals when I was in college, that was 1999 that I’d be okay with a thirty thousand pesos a month salary. That was a big money twenty years ago and I was very naïve about the expenses of adult living. I never really had big dreams. Back then, all I wanted was to just get a job to live and help my family mostly in the finances.

We were a poor family. My father worked as a factory worker until he retired and mother a stayed at home. My mother put up a small variety store at home to help make ends meet. All of us went to public school except in high school I got to experience the private Catholic school, but the tuition fees were still affordable for the lower middle class back then. We still able to eat three meals a day. My three older siblings finished vocational courses. I was the only one who finished a four-year degree since I was the youngest.

When I was young, I did not really know what I wanted to do. We were raised and taught that what mattered was we had jobs that pay for our needs. We had to finish school, get a job, get married, raise a family, then retire. The norm. And so, we did.

But life changed. I got married when I thought I was going to be single for the rest of my life. I did not have children when that was something I was sure about when marrying was an option. Life is really full of surprises. The only one thing that has been constant in my life since then was struggle with finances. Money matters. Everyone’s issue, haha!

I got a job, dreamed of climbing the corporate ladder (the title did not matter, all I cared was the huge pay) enrolled in an MBA program, and I was full of hopes and dreams. But hey, I did not make it. Some things keep on stopping me from getting them. These things are not for me. Fine! I stop chasing them.

I failed. Again. I can’t remember how many things I had wanted and not getting them. F*ck them all! I’m gonna be forty and f*ck all those dreams. Who cares? Right?