courage & everything princesses are supposed to have.

It was made known to me by a Youtube Ad, I saw today, that I might be lacking in courage. Considering most Disney Princess movies have been trying to teach that since the 1950s, I might have not learned it enough - well, they’ve taught that and other confusing things. I’ve been blogging about how sad I’ve been trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between my current self and my untapped potential. I see her (the latter), figuratively, but not in the mirror. Not yet, at least. Hopefully, by next week she’s here. We can all dream… but I’ve been working on seeing myself in a better light.

I also realized I’m a full grown adult. When I was watching a Vogue Beauty Secrets video, and Gracie Abrams was talking about how she only struggled with acne when she became an adult… I audibly gasped! I was like “baby girl, you’re sixteen!”, then I realized I saw everyone that was younger than me, as a sixteen year old. Everyone froze at that age. I still saw myself as a nineteen year old. A teenage girl, who is a legal adult, but… maybe… not yet.. a whole one… but once it sunk in, that I’ve been in my early twenties for quite a while now, I realized (third times a charm) that I, too, am struggling with adult acne. Adult acne. I know, I’m so brave to admit it! I always assumed these were marks left from being a teenage girl, but I am no longer one, and it’s been almost five years for those marks to have left me… but they haven’t! Anyhoo, this isn’t about the acne that I’ve learned to accept, it’s about the courage that I might not have enough of. 

When I accepted my twenty-three year old mind, I realized that I’m not that old either… that it might not be too late. I’ve always wanted to put my whole heart into specific things, but never had the courage too, because I just keep thinking about how they could possibly fail, and it would just be embarrassing, since a whole audience saw me try and fail, altogether. I’ve never even been able to admit what I want from myself, because I fear these could be superficial things… and as a woman, it’s easy to be categorized into desiring frivolity. I tell myself a lot that I don’t really have any good ideas. But you know what? Fuck that. I have been burned out for a while now. I spent most of my life working hard to gain appreciation for my efforts, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, what made me happy, what I was striving for. The idea of excellence is so fucking vague, that I don’t actually know what I’d be excellent in, or at least want to be excellent in. Maybe, you know what, I might just fucking try to do the things I like. So, get ready to hear me in full volume (woah, cool girl alert).

The Youtube Ad was this person talking about how one procrastinates. How we don’t actually procrastinate because we’re ‘lazy’ or ‘unmotivated’, but because we’re riddled by fear. And that fear stops us from trying anything at all, it helps us belittle our ideas into “well, it was just an idea, it’s not like it’s my livelihood”... and that we eventually don't act on it. It also talked about how we have a hard time doing things, because we correlate these things (tasks, ideas, dreams) with unimportance or being unnecessary.. Honestly, when I heard that Ad, I told the TV that it had to be taken down a notch, because how dare you speak to me that way. But it sucks, because that person was right. I don’t even know what the Ad was for, or who made it, but it’s the rare occasion where a weapon of capitalism has actually won the war in my head. Call it divine intervention, if you’d like. 

I thought about it, and remembered the Japanese philosophy mentioned in the Netflix Documentary “Live To 100: The Legend of the Blue Zones”, called Ikigai. Which is essentially, one’s reason to live. It doesn’t need to be a specific occupation or role, it can just be something as vague as farming, or planting in your back garden, something that gives you tiny joy and pleasure in your life. To which, in combining this philosophy with the Ad, what if the ‘idea’ is just something that gives meaning to your life. It can just be a tiny book where you document all your travels, or a tiktok where you document all your crochet projects, does it have to be successful by becoming a career, or something you earn from? Can it just be fun? Can it just be for leisure? Can it just be something that makes your life worth living, because living is an achievement enough? Does it have to be something monumental, that I have to achieve, so that I feel like I’ve reached my untapped potential? 

There’s a fig tree quote by Sylvia Plath that I come across from time to time:

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

And when I realized I didn’t actually know what I liked doing, and what were the threads that made my life, instead of breaking down, I felt like I was on a high. What an exciting time to be alive and just try. Right? Maybe my imposter syndrome will hide away.

I’ve always wanted to vlog, and I’ve said that before. I am just fascinated by the idea of self-documentation, and I grew up watching vlogs, so why not? I always felt like it was embarrassing, because if someone found it, then they’d think I was a try-hard. I always justified my decision of not recording, by saying I wasn’t pretty enough anyway, or did not know anything about beauty anyway, or didn’t have money to do anything interesting, or know enough about anything to vlog about anything, but you know what fuck it! If it’ll possibly give me a lust for life again why not? I have always enjoyed photography, and I was fucking good at it… and now that I’m absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, and astonishingly witty, (incredibly humble too, and sometimes, I am only ever insecure) so, what’s stopping me!

I also have this handmade-jewelry brand that I started in 2021, that I’ve been doing on and off, just because I wanted the side money, but also, I just love accessories. It's a physical embellishment. I stopped it in 2022, because I felt burned out by my degree and my part-time job, and just life, but now, I know that I’m not as burned out as I was, I just can’t do too much of it, because I constantly feel like I’m going to fail, and that (yet gain) the whole world saw me try so hard at it, that I’ve backed myself up against a wall that was going to crumble anyway. Then my partner told me, “and so what if it crumbles? At least you tried, and spent your time trying.” and you know what, it’s another rare occasion that we have to note, not about capitalism but, when a man is right. 

I also very rarely try to admit my childish dreams and goals because they could seem totally idealistic, and saying it out loud makes me feel like a fool… but with a little love and a little courage, I have been able to give it some thought, and actually visualize it. I’ve always wanted to open a cafe-resto-bar. In this corner in Remuera. I’m a trained barista, and I’ve worked in hospo for quite a bit that I know I just love it. I don’t love hospo, but I love making drinks. Artisan coffee, and actual alcoholic drinks. I wanted this corner cafe that turns into a bar at night, serving tapas.  I wanted it to be called “BINONDO”; a chinese-filipino themed cafe-resto-bar, that tells stories of my upbringing and the culture that my family has brought here, to Aotearoa. Not a lot of people here know that there’s a whole subculture of Tsinays & Tsinoys in The Philippines, and I wanted to share that. But I suck at cooking, my lolas on the other hand, are the absolute best at it. In baking too. Not that I’m belittling the dream, but it’s not like I’ll do it anytime soon, but just saying it out loud, makes me know I’ve still got some of that magic in me. I don’t know what kind of magic but just the fact that I can think of ideas and have a basis for them… that I can dream, that I have a life outside of the normal box of working. I hope that’s enough to keep me going. 

So, courage. My partner left me a quote from E.E. Cummings, that sits on the wall above my desk: “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” and on the piece of paper he’s written “courage, which you have”, and it’s always nice to look at it, especially when I have those weekly meltdowns, where (as per my previous blogs) I feel like a fraud, because I’ve made this big move to pursue my dreams away from home, and I’m just me, and it doesn’t feel like I’m moving, but when I see the note, I just remember that I am trying. I wrote this blog post because I want to make it known to everyone that I’m out here trying, and I’m constantly trying to lift myself up, and that I’m not mentally drained, and I’m trying really hard to root for myself. I got a lot of messages of people consoling me from my previous blog posts; saying they either feel the same way, or telling me to believe in myself, or are just concerned about my mental state. Well, I’m doing good and better than I've been. 

I don’t want to put down Gabbie anymore. I don’t wanna just start believing in her when she starts rising, I wanna be her fan from the start of things, because I know that she’s all things good, and that she’s trying. She’s constantly trying, and that could either be good enough or more than enough, but at least she knows that she’s eating the figs from each branch, and the fig tree only wilts when she does.