I read the article for Time Magazine Person of Year 2017. I just thought it was worth a share.

I’m a big fan of mantras. This morning I have been telling myself good things. To keep moving. To stay the course. To not give up. To fight the fight. To not back down.

I’m stressed out by something that I don’t want to be stressed out about. Money. 

I never really understood why people struggle to pay for school until now. I’m in the process of figuring how to pay for school. It is amazing how something that is suppose to be helpful becomes this complicated labyrinth of paperwork that derives you to anger and tears.

Yesterday, I cried to my friend about how I really am exhausted with anxiety of wondering if I would have the right amount of funds to even start school. I felt like delaying. I felt like giving up. She kept reminding me that I want to be a nurse. I really want to be a nurse. And I just need to tolerate this short term pain for my long term gain.

I’m a bit more in fighter mode this morning. I still have some of the anxiety of last night. But this morning, I focusing o  the fact that I want this. I want this very much. I want to be a nurse.

I have had days filled with anxiety. An example is when I sign up for an event on where I will be mingling with strangers. For an introvert like me, that is putting myself in a stressful situation and hoping to survive it.

If this is clearly stressful to me, why would I do this? I have had time to think about it and I think it is simple. When I make decision, I consider my best and worst case scenario. If I attend the event, what is the worst case scenario. For me, I’ll arrive at the location, see all this people and start having an anxiety attack. I’ll still summon the courage to go in and stand in a corner while waiting for a random person to say hello to me. After a while, I’ll get scared and bolt out of the room. I’ll tell myself I tried my best.

Under the best case scenario, I’ll wake up feeling fabulous. I will wear my outfit, do my makeup and I’ll ‘ginger’ up some courage. I’ll arrive at the event and be upbeat plus flirty. I’ll stand in the middle of the room and somehow work myself into a conversation with strangers. I’ll make friends and manage to make connections. At the end of the night, I’ll float home knowing that I had done the best I could as an introvert.

The thing is I never know how I’ll feel until I arrive. Some days, I am really good with large groups of people. Other days, my energy level is just too low to actual care. Even though I stress out about going out, on my good days, I come out feeling proud and happy. On my bad days, I pat myself on the back for at least trying. 

I have learned to make decisions based on dreams instead of fears. I don’t want to go through so afraid of the worst case that I miss out on the best days. So, even though I am stressing out about an event that is 5 days away, I’ll put on my big girl pants and keep making fearless decisions to show up. Sometimes, showing up is the biggest win of all.

Death is not something I engage with on the regular. I have been lucky in my lifetime not to have had too many traumatic losses. The only nod to my mortality has been my choice to live my life fully and strive for happiness.

I guess 2017 did not get the memo on my life motto. This second half of 2017 has made me think of my mortality in ways that are real. At this point, I am grateful to still be living. Still, I find myself not thinking about death but thinking about life, despite my recent forced acknowledgment of my own mortality. I find that as I start to regain my health, I am more interested in ways to live fully. How do I recover from what has been a traumatic health scare and affirm my life with my choices? How do I live with grace?

I have been laying low for over a week now. I am not allowed to do anything major at the moment. In some of my low moments being an invalid, I questioned how I could be strong in one moment and unable to lift my bags in the next. I have cried at the vulnerability required to say I need help.

The one thing that has been amazing about this trauma has been discovering how much love have in my life. It is in the moments when I am talking to my parents and they are both concerned but so gentle. In that moment, I am no longer 31. I am their child. It is negotiating with my older sister if I can go out for an hour or two. My independence be damned, I am her little sister. It is in my friends creating a cozy corner in their home so that I can nap while visiting. It is in my best friend being emotional the first day I sounded like myself in a long time.

Things have been scary for me. Things will be scary for me. But none of that matters because I recognize that if I can keep my life filled with love, joy and laughter, it will get better. I’ll always have my family and friends to carry me through, near or far.

As I get through this moment, I have come to understand that I needed this trauma. I needed it to remind me to live. To not take time for granted. To do the things that I am scared of. It was a reminder that I am not alive forever. I need to not regret the things I haven’t done. I need to do more. I need to be fearless. I need to truly chase the impossible.

Christmas 2015. The duck must have been cooked. The potatoes mashed. I am not sure if I was between cooking and eating or if I had eaten. All I know is I signed up to attend a phone bank event for a political candidate. The most surprising part might not be that I signed up. It is that I showed up on the designated day to make the phone calls.

Turning thirty is doing something to me that I can’t describe. Maybe it is that I need something to motivate me to fill my life up or maybe there is some life crisis playing itself out like a slow tune. Whatever it is, I find myself doing things that are making me become this person that I maybe always wanted to be. I always wanted to be an activist; to be political active.

I am not quite clear now what I thought a phone bank was. Okay, I won’t lie. I had some thoughts that I might meet some like minded people there. In the back of my mind were thoughts of having life affirming conversation with voters on the phone. I really have a need to expand my social life beyond this screen.

At least, I don’t think I had any thoughts of being in a fast moving scene like a movie. You know how movies always make campaign seem like the sexiest things ever. The offices are dimly lit to show how much of a long shot the candidate is. The carpet is grimly. The walls are covered in logos. It should be clear to the viewer that this is a long shot candidacy. But you still get pizza, copious amount of coffee and people yelling unintelligibly into the phone.

The truth is I showed up at a door on a nondescript building tucked into the shadows up a bigger nondescript building in the middle of the city. The room looked like a movie scene, except emptier and quieter in the beginning. The long I stayed there, the louder it got. I did meet new people who are nothing like me and don’t live within a screen. And the first hour was a drag.

Oh Lord! That first hour was a trial of my commitment. It was a series of unanswered phone calls. The second and third hour was a series of answered calls. Here is the thing I learned from my few conversations; most voters assume their money and their support is all they need to give to their chosen candidates.

“Hi, my name is Sinmi and I am calling on behalf of  ….”

“Already gave money online and I am voting for …!”

click . To be fair to the many polite people I spoke to, only maybe 2 people did this out of the almost hundred I called in three hours. The rest were polite in declining the invitation to volunteer. A few decided to thank me for my service. A few said they would look into volunteering online. Heck, I even got one person to make a concrete commitment to come in for a shift next week.

Somewhere between that first ring and 3 hours later, I had fun. It was in the snippet of conversation with people who just wanted to say ‘hi’ to me. It was in the atmosphere in the room. It was in the pride that I took in doing something. It was fun. It was so much fun I signed up to work again next week.