When I was a kid, about seven years old, I remember each morning on my way to school, I see this lady clad with a smart corporate jacket and skirt paired with a towering high stiletto heels click clacking her way to the public transport waiting area where I am waiting for my school service. I recall staring at her admiring how sophisticated she looked and how I can’t wait to grow up and wear the same pair of shoes. I don’t know what it was but in my mind I pictured this lady as a 27-year old woman and I thought to myself when I’m 27, I will be wearing those chic corporate outfits with lofty heels matched with a pair of hosiery.
My admiration for this woman actually inspired my young imaginative mind to paint a vivid picture of what I will become when I am 27. I clearly recollect all the details that I have added to the appearance that I have sketched for myself. I even wrote all the details down my small journal to make it more official. During those times, I dreamed that when I’m 27, I’ll be married to the man of my dreams (even at the age of 7 I believed that the ideal age of getting married is 25). I’ll be working as a successful lawyer for one of the top companies in Manila. I even remember noting down that when I am 27, unlike the lady who takes public transport, my husband will be driving me to the office everyday. (I was a hopeless romantic even as a kid, I think it was the influence of Disney cartoons)
Suddenly, I wake up and it’s already the 14th of January 2008, my birthday month and I am turning 27 in a couple of days. I can’t help but look back and wonder if I did myself justice and fulfilled my list when I was a kid. Well for starters, I am married but not to the man of my dreams at seven years old who was Sleeping Beauty’s prince charming with his blond hair and blue eyes and his proud horse, but to a man even more than just a dream, a man who was an answered prayer. I am not a lawyer but a Certified Public Accountant and I am not working for one of the top companies in Manila but for a leading company in Europe. Oh, I do wear click clacking heels when I go to the office and I do wear those corporate attires, mostly skirts so I think my seven year old self would be happy about that.
It feels so surreal, as I look back at the dreams I envisioned when I was a kid. I might not have hit the mark on most of what I have enlisted but I can’t say that I’m dissatisfied. As I mature in that 20-year-gap, I have learned to believe that happiness is not possessing expensive things but sharing what you have with the people in your life, it’s not the places you’ve been to but who was holding your hand while taking in the beauty of a new place. Happiness is having people that you love cherish those glorious moments of success with you and having them by your side in times when the world seem to crumble. Looking back, I just can’t thank God enough for all the blessings he showered upon me and continues to shower me everyday.
In the end, I think my seven-year-old self would be more than happy with where I am today. I know I am.
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