A long walk: An essay

I have never been a fan of walking—it exhausts me and pains my legs and ankles.

However, I have long since realized that living is not so far from walking.

You both move forward, or at least you aspire to, and almost every step dents you and leaves a mark on your entire being. So, even though I am not so fond of walking, I have learned to accept it as much as I had accepted the harshness of being alive.

At six years old, I viewed the world quite differently.

I watched television dramas and admired the fiction of romance. I read book after book and admired the oceans that I cannot yet cross and the mountains that I cannot yet climb. I dreamed hard, and by hard I mean sweating in the night thinking of what I would do inside the rocket ship that I had built for my family. I was six—but I knew exactly what I wanted to do in my life and where I wanted to be next.

However, life isn’t predictable. Life isn’t fiction or a romanticized fable of falling in love and being sure of your decisions. Life isn’t just the oceans or the mountains that you knew existed, but a montage of hard truths and white lies that people grow up to deny and hide.

Life isn’t always how you dreamed it to be, and for quite some time that terrible burden of knowing these things paralyzed me from being able to believe. I had stopped dreaming.

But life continued in the most unexpected ways.

I have found love in a familiar face with a brand new set of histories and unrealized plans. I have learned to list down the oceans that I would like to swim in and the mountains that I want to rest on top of. I have learned to dream again and never stop believing that there is always a chance for everything—even the slightest, smallest percentage—and those chances can very much alter your life.

So if you’d asked me where I would be after 25 years of walking through life… If you’d asked me where I think I would be after side-stepping so many cracks in the road, after hopping from doubts and rumors and failed friendships, and after realizing so many mistakes that could topple me to the ground—I would tell you one simple thing.

I can be an astronaut like I wanted when I was six. Or I can be a teacher like I wanted when I was seven. I can be a psychiatrist like I wanted when I was 12. I can be a scientist like I wanted when I was 13. I can be a doctor like I wanted when I was 17. Or I can be a mother to wonderful children like I wanted when I was 10.

But no matter what I’d be in the next 25 years, one thing is certain. I will be what I want. I will be what I do. And there is nothing stopping me from this one hell of a walk.