You’ve upkept this blog for the last 5 and a half years to give yourself a writing outlet when the post-grad blues were hitting. You didn’t know where it would take you, or how long you’d keep it running, but you knew you had to start somewhere. You have had the privilege of telling your story, and the stories of countless others.
At times you felt conflicted about being so publicly vulnerable, for you keep to yourself, very intentional about keeping your circle small. But you went with your gut feeling and ran with it. This blog has evolved and changed with you as you went through the many stages of life. You’ve documented your grief, heartbreak, happiness, growth, the parts of you that still need healing, and everything in-between. The last 5.5 years of writing has taught you many things, and this is what you’re taking away as you start your next journey –
You are allowed to change your mind. This is your life, act like it. Nobody has to agree with your decisions, as long as it makes sense to you. People pleasing will get you nowhere. If you’re living your life with others in mind, you won’t be living for yourself. You’ll look back and think what you could’ve done differently had you chose yourself and what you wanted. So leave no stone unturned. You’ve always done things on your own time, you have to live and learn for yourself.
And if at any point you continue down a path that you realize is not what you want anymore – it’s okay to pivot. It’s okay to change directions. It’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay to start over. And you have had to click the restart button many times before. Don’t let starting over be the reason why you overstay your welcome. This is your life, you steer it in any direction you please.
No matter how fucked up life can get, your heart will remain untainted. Your biggest flex is your heart, your loyalty, the love you pour into others. You move with pure intentions, so believe me when I say – you will always win. Even when the journey gets tough and things seem to not work out in your favor, trust that you will get everything you want and deserve.
You will forever be a work in progress. Perfect doesn’t exist and growth is never linear. But you control your own narrative. You are truly 1 of 1. Own your past, present, and what is yet to come, because your journey is yours. Love yourz because you create the life you want to live. Make sure it’s what you want.
You don’t know what the next chapter will look like after you shut this down, but you know it’s time. Time to explore different creative outlets, time to pour into other things, time for change. Wore my heart on my sleeve for the past 5.5 years and allowed myself to be vulnerable and real. Thank you to everyone who has been along for the ride.
For when you’re upset that things aren’t going how you’ve planned:
Look at how far you’ve come. You used to be so hung up on things having to be exactly how you planned it out to be. And if the timing or circumstances weren’t perfect, you’d wait. This way of thinking always had you believing that happiness was at the next achievement, the next paycheck, or the next chapter in your life. That mentality delayed your happiness.
Now you know there is never going to be the “perfect time” to be happy or get the ball rolling on what you want. You’ve cracked the code: happiness is in the present moment … if you choose to see it. And the perfect time to do and want better will always be in the now.
Because YOU are not perfect either. And it’s okay to change your mind, to pivot your life’s direction, to set new goals. You’re forever learning and unlearning, and because of that, you are forever making decisions on how to move next. Life is not perfect. Trust your gut and be patient with yourself and others. Realize that others are not perfect either, but our imperfect imperfections are what makes us, us.
Note to self – There’s no such thing as perfect. If you wait for everything to go as planned, you’ll be waiting forever.
Post 5 of 10 of LoveYourzStory’s Jhené Aiko Series. Inspired by “Limbo Limbo Limbo.”
I’m deep in my Jhené Era. She’s def the top artist I’ve been listening to on repeat for at least the last 6 months. This series will be a showcase of how her music has inspired me throughout this journey – the journey back to self✨️
I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Everything is calculated down to each second.
There’s no such thing as right place, wrong time.
Believe that some things were just never meant to happen.
I’m a firm believer that there are no accidents.
Each moment is strung together for a bigger purpose.
If everything is meant to be, there is no such thing as wasted time.
I used to mourn lost time, wasted time, too much time.
But everything is connected, there are no coincidences.
You will never be too early or too late for what’s yours.
Post 2 of 10 of LoveYourzStory’s Jhené Aiko Series. Inspired by “Born Tired.”
I’m deep in my Jhené Era. She’s def the top artist I’ve been listening to on repeat for at least the last 6 months. This series will be a showcase of how her music has inspired me throughout this journey – the journey back to self✨️
Cherry Blossoms starting to bloom in San Francisco.
They say the universe will intervene if you remain stagnant.
But the cosmos are patient and understanding too – they always give us the free will to redeem ourselves.
Evolve or repeat – learn the lesson and grow, or repeat the same cycle in different forms until you get it right.
Avoid what needs to be done, and watch the universe pull the rug from right under you. Time’s up.
You have no business being in places, situations, and connections that don’t serve your highest good.
My Tower moments always came at the right time.
This was a forced transformation.
Thank you, universe, for giving me no choice but to get the ball rolling.
Nobody talks about how overwhelming and exhausting it is to be cracked open.
But once the light gets in, there really is no going back.
What a rewarding, yet chaotic, journey it has been so far.
I’m learning to not question what the universe has in store for me.
There are no accidents. Now, this is all by choice. I have to keep going.
I just recently turned the awkward age of 27 in February. And it really took over a whole month for me to process that I’m actually 27. I say “awkward 27” because it’s an age where you’re not as confused as you were in your early 20’s, but you’re not quite knowing what the fuck you’re doing yet. That’s the case for me at least. It’s one of those transitional years that will have you playing around with your career, who you surround yourself with, and in general trying figuring out what direction to take your life. That’s currently the stage I’m in.
It’s also a funny age because if you take a hundred 27 year olds from all over the country, you’d quickly see how different everyone’s lives are. You have 27 year olds that are married with kids, starting a business, traveling the world, going to school, working minimum wage jobs, unemployed, sick, are sugar babies, are successful, act like they’re 55, or the ones that act like they’re still 17. It is such a wide spectrum. What nobody tells you is that your late 20’s will somewhat feel like a preview of what you assume a mid-life crisis would feel like.
I’ve always been the type that tried to plan out my life and next moves to a T. The kind of plans that are well thought out with back up plans on back up plans on deck. That has always been my nature – plan ahead and hope for the best, but simultaneously having the “I’ll just wing it” complex. The “I’ll deal with it when I deal with it,” mindset is both comforting yet dreadful. Especially since 27 feels like I should have it “dealt with” already.
When you’re in your early 20’s, you feel like you have all the time in the world to figure life out. But in a blink of an eye I went from being 21 to being a confused ass 27 year old. Where the fuck did the time go, ma’am-sir, because I didn’t prepare for this shit. As I approached my mid-20’s, the dread started to set in. The fear of “fuck, am I going to be able to pull this shit off?” was always at the back of my mind. That’s me, always waiting until the very last minute to fight or flight life.
In my early 20’s, I wasn’t trippin’ much about the future and my career. Yes, I cared about getting my degree and started attempting to save money, but I wasn’t taking it too seriously. The future was definitely a thought, but it seemed too far away to stress out about. When I hit my mid 20’s, it started to hit me that my clock was ticking. And when I say my clock, I mean every fuckin clock out there. My career clock, my financial stability clock, my life timeline clock, but most importantly my biological clock. But at that point, I’m 24 – 25, I have a couple more years to figure it out. “That’s future Marinelle’s problem,” I would tell myself.
But literally overnight, I went from 26 to 27. And it really felt like it was the transition of the century. Oh shit. I’m fuckin 27. To put it into perspective, my mom was 26 when she got married to my dad, and when I juxtapose my life now to hers 30 years ago, my jaw could literally drop at the difference. I’m a firm believer in knowing that things will happen on its own time for me. I know life is a lot different now than it was when my mom was my age. At age 27 she was married and had her first child. But at the same time, I can’t help but think that these next 3-5 years are grind time.
In 3-5 years, I’ll be 30 – 32. I say grind time because whether I want to admit it or not, my time frame to start and have a family is very limited. I’ll never forget when my best friends and I sang happy birthday to my friend on her 18th birthday. 18th birthdays to Filipinos are a really big deal. It’s a woman’s entrance into “womanhood.” We watched her as she hovered over her 18th birthday cake, the candles lit and ready to be blown out. We expected her to make a wish and blow out her candles, happy, and ready to hangout the rest of the day. Instead, she blew out her candles and began to cry. I wish I could take a picture of everyone’s face expression in that moment. “What’s wrong?!”
“My biological clock is ticking!” She said laughing behind the tears she was shedding.
We held that moment against her since. We laughed out of complete shock and confusion. Is this bitch really crying and worrying about having kids at her EIGHTEENTH birthday?! It was just so funny to us because we were seniors in high school, all we’re supposed to care about at that time was getting into college, worrying about what major to declare, and trippin’ off boys who weren’t going to mean shit to us a couple years down the road. It just seemed so damn premature to be worrying about reproducing at that exact moment. To this day we still joke about the “biological clock” crying incident.
But here I am now, 27 years old, worrying about my damn biological clock. Life always seems to come back around full circle, doesn’t it? In a way, I feel like the pandemic aged me. It’s been 2 years since the start of the pandemic. I went into the pandemic freshly turning 25, and now we’re still in the thick of the madness 2 years later. There’s a huge part of me that feels like a good chunk of my youth has been taken from me. 2 years doesn’t seem like much, but those 2 years in the grander scheme of things were really pivotal ages.
25 and 26 years old – the ages where you really begin to know yourself as a person. And I definitely was forced to know myself even more in the midst of the lockdown. 25 and 26 is so smack dabbed in the middle of crucial points in one’s life, and I feel like for those 2 years we all had no choice but to chill out and wait as the world around us turned into a frenzy over the pandemic. Life stood still during these 2 years while simultaneously speeding shit up.
I found that to be especially true when Tatay passed away last year. When he passed, I really re-evaluated what I want out of this life – what’s important to me, what my dreams are, what I would do to make sure everyone around me is good. I lost someone so important to me, and in a way, it felt like I was saying goodbye to a certain part of my life. Whether I liked it or not, life was turning the page, entering me into a new chapter of life. I spent the rest of 2021 wallowing in my sadness, as I had every right to do. Then 2022 came and it’s like 27 said, “Ready or not, here I come.”
The new year somewhat reset me. When I hear people’s success stories, it motivates and inspires me to keep trying to get to where I want to be in life. You don’t know how you’re going to get there, but you hope you will. When will the opportunity show itself? I can’t help but think that things will show up as a sign or opportunity when the time is right. And if I’m being completely honest, I thought those signs and opportunities would reveal themselves already. But I try to remember that each month that passes by, I’m slowly taking baby steps to where I want to be. It doesn’t seem like any progress on a day to day basis, but when you look back, you’ll see how those small steps got you far.
And like I said, I feel like the next 3-5 years are grind time. Deep in my heart I hope I can pull it all off. It’s like a little ticking clock constantly keeping track in my head. When I daydream, I picture myself having it all. Will I be financially stable enough to have kids in the next couple of years? Will I be ready to not be selfish and take on the responsibility of caring for another life / lives for the rest of my life? Will I Hail Mary the next couple of years and just miraculously successfully get my shit together? I think of all of this stuff often.
These things are in the back of my head, but surprisingly, I’m suspiciously content. Content with where I’m at in life, content with the biological time frame I have as a woman, and content in knowing that whatever is meant to be will be, and whatever is meant for me will happen with time. But it’s true, I’m getting older, these are things I need to think about and plan for. At 27, I still have the “I’ll deal with it when I deal with it mentality,” however, one thing is different this time.
This time around, I find myself being more productive with my time. I find myself watering parts of my life I want to see grow, especially in my career sector, dreams sector, and relationships. For me, there’s no point in trippin’ out, things will happen when it’s supposed to. And like always, I’ll wing it when it’s time. But one thing I know for sure is that I can’t be sitting here waiting for things to progress if I’m not making the conscious effort to make things happen. I find myself being more purposeful with my time, knowing every move is a calculated step to what I want in the future.
I went into 2022 with a whole new mindset. I don’t know what it was or what triggered it. I like to think after a depressing year losing Tatay and Rhonda, they are pulling string for me on the other side, giving me the motivation to do the things I want to achieve. I’ve been a procrastinator all my life, but I went into 2022 wanting to get shit done. I’m taking literal baby steps in becoming productive, even if it that means creating small habits that will benefit me in the long run.
I was never one to fear getting older. In fact, I always wanted to be older because I wanted that freedom, stability, and independence. I’m realizing now, with my 27 year old ass, that it takes a lot of hard work and preparation to get to that level of comfort. But I’m confident that I’ll wing it, like I have been for the last 27 years. This time though, I’m doing it with more purpose and intent. Whatever is meant to be mine will be mine, with hard work of course. I’m fully embracing my awkward 27th year of life. I’m embracing the unknown, the confusion, and winging it as I go.
When you feel bored, where does your brain wander to?
Y’all already know this, but I’m a dreamer by nature. When I’m bored, my mind drifts in so many directions. Who needs entertainment when I got my own damn self? And truly nothing is off limits for me. I think of everything and anything, which is probably why I’m notorious for getting easily distracted.
Lately, when I close my eyes, I picture myself “having it all.” Shit, who doesn’t? And most of the time, my daydreams are forever changing…
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I’m in my big ass cozy home, I’m holding my baby in one arm as I use my other hand to type up my latest project. I’m working from home, the vibe is stress free, and I’m financially comfortable. There isn’t a care in the world. My house is clean, my kids are taken care of, and my husband and I are financially well. We’re not tired, we’re not burnt out, and we genuinely love what we do. I’m working on my latest passion project, but I’m ahead of schedule. There’s no pressure to deliver because I’m working on my own time. Anything I put out is just adding to the already massive amount of well-known published work I have circulating around.
The doorbell rings and my parents enter. They take off their shoes at the door and make themselves comfortable. The kids greet their grandparents and try to show them the latest things they learned in school, show them a new wrestling move their dad taught them, or give them a drawing they made sometime during the week. There’s already food in the kitchen, and you can still see the steam, you know that shit’s still hot. It’s from our favorite take out restaurant, and we have everyone’s favorite dish.
It’s Sunday dinner, and we’re waiting for the rest of the family to show up. My nieces and nephews start to arrive, and they immediately link up with my kids and start playing. The once mellow home is starting to be filled with relatives, getting more and more chaotic as more people start arriving. But I fuckin’ love it. The kitchen is filled with delicious food, so I start to light the candle so the house doesn’t smell like straight food the whole night. Everyone’s together, everyone’s happy, and life is good. Everyone grabs a plate and starts to eat.
“Did you know we used to do this at Tatay’s house?” I tell my kids for the billionth time.
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I’m on and off planes consistently. This time I’m in a distant land that resembles paradise. Hawaii? The Philippines? I’m not too sure, but I’m on some island. The weather is perfect. It’s sunny, but it’s not too hot. And when I say perfect, I mean a very particular kind of weather – I get hot hella quick. The skies are blue, I’m by the beach, and I ain’t got shit to do. I have nowhere to go and I have all the time in the world. My biggest concern is where I’m going to eat that night. There’s no masks, no pandemic, no restrictions. In fact, COVID ain’t even a thing anymore. So much time has passed since the pandemic that it’s a distant memory.
I’m not worried about work, or finances, or stressing. I’m present and in the moment. I feel damn good in the clothes I’m wearing, and I’m radiating confidence… still humble though. I turn on my laptop and start typing away. What am I writing? I don’t fuckin know, all I know is in my fantasies, I’m always working on something. I’m writing for pure fun and enjoyment, not because the bills depend on it. However, it is my money maker, but it’s so effortless that the writing experience is peaceful as hell. I often look back to my beginning stages of my writing career and how I kept up with my blog. My mind drifts off for a bit, remembering how confused and lost I was… I’m thankful I stuck with it because it got me to where I am. “I did that shit,” I think to myself.
The sunset is the perfect ending to a perfect relaxing day. We finally decide to ditch the beach and go back to the place to get ready for dinner. We get all dressed up and head out. It’s a restaurant that wants me to write about my experience dining in. In fact, that’s why I’m on this paradise island. We got the trip complimentary in every aspect. My loved ones are along for the ride. I’m finally getting to travel the world because of my writing.
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I’m getting interviewed about my latest passion project. And like every other interview I have done up until that point, I make it a point to share that I was born and raised in the Bay Area. I call Daly City by name and make it known that that’s where I was raised the first 25 years of my life. I rep San Francisco and the Bay Area as a whole, but I don’t hesitate to shout out Daly City.
The interviewer doesn’t ask, “Where’s that?” like past reporters have. No, they know where Daly City is. I’ve repeated it in many interviews, wrote about it tirelessly in my writing, and have been very vocal about where I’m from.
Bay Area born and raised. To me, this will forever be home. But they want to talk about the glam side of the Bay Area, San Francisco more specifically. The tech side of San Francisco, the hipsters, how boujee it is. But that’s not the San Francisco I grew up in, that’s not what was happening in Daly City.
I’m finally at a place in my life where I can give back. Give back to not only my family and those around me, but my community as well. The Bay Area, Daly City, San Francisco, the place I called home for so long. The way J.Cole reps Fayetteville, North Carolina is the same way I’ll rep my home town. But I just don’t rep it for the sake of Bay Area street cred. I acknowledge the good, bad, and the ugly of the city.
My parents weren’t in the tech industry, people like me could never buy a home in San Francisco in the year 2022, and families that were born and raised in the area were getting pushed further and further out. I know first hand what it’s like to be in the most expensive area in the country, and not have it like that. And because I know what it’s like, I’m giving back to the community that made me.
The schools are getting better funding, sports teams aren’t getting cut, and little Manila, Daly City, is making a name for itself. Daly City is no longer being overlooked or downplayed.
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I’m enjoying the early morning hours at my kitchen table. It’s still pretty dark outside, the house is still quiet, and I’m reminiscing on the stories I just told my grandchildren the day before. I’m always talking, always involved, always passing down our family stories. That’s important to me – that those stories and the people in those stories are still talked about. Even though my grandchildren never met them, it’s important that they know where they came from. I need them to know where our family came from, what struggles they endured for us to have a better life, and learn all the family trauma so that it does not repeat itself.
I have finally hit my Uncle Iroh stage in life where I’m just wise, chillin’, and offering unsolicited advice. I look back on my life and accept all the choices I have made, I love reminiscing on all the memories I’ve made with those who have come and went, and there is not one ounce of regret in my soul. I love the life I chose. Even though at times it wasn’t clear to me and I’ve had my fair share of hardships, this life is mine and mine alone. I never think what if, and there’s no doubt in my mind this is where I’m supposed to be right now.
My house is surrounded by so many photos. So many happy memories captured in a single shot. My house is decorated with family, friends, postcards, vacations, art, collectibles, everything that brings me joy. It’s a house filled with love. Just by looking at the photos on the wall is a family history lesson all on its own. My old wise ass is known for sharing all the stories, making sure people from our past don’t get forgotten.
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When I first got this writing prompt, I originally wanted to write about 1 daydream only. But my daydreams are forever changing, which is why I decided to share the most common daydreams I have. Even though the daydream changes, 1 theme remains true in all the scenarios – I’m happy, successful, giving back, and have my loved ones along for the ride. And I guess that captures the essence of what success means to me.
I’ve seen a shift in what I daydream about recently. In the past, a lot of my free time went to thinking up imaginary scenarios that stressed me out. What am I going to do with my life? What if I don’t get X done in X amount of time? What if I fail? What if I make the wrong move in life? Am I going to be successful? It seemed like even my daydreams stressed me out. But recently, I’ve been daydreaming positively. I’ve been more comfortable in knowing that things will come with time, and of course hard work. When I allow my mind to freely wander stress-free, I find myself subconsciously telling me what’s important to me and what I truly want out of life.
Love Yourz Story 