I’m 19 years old and am turning 20 within half a year. When you think about it, that would be two decades of living in this world; it truly has you ruminating about how fast time flies and slips out your hand like grains of sand. 

I love a whole lot of things, like video games, plants, anime, movies and stories from various genres. Of course, my hobbies correlate with them, like reading, writing, playing video games, watching a wide variety of video genres and engaging with transformative works — I would honestly love to count some form of arts and crafts here but, we’ve no budget or time for that. 

I like to think I’m a pretty self-aware person and I see where my shortcomings are. I’m also the type to overthink; whether it was a social interaction maybe a few minutes ago or maybe, gods forbid, years ago. I’m also the type to procrastinate a lot — in fact, I call myself a professional procrastinator. Ha.

I can do a lot of things at the same time and am pretty good at multi-tasking but at some point crashing after a peak of energy is inevitable, so I get tired, and me getting to that point of energy again is so slow-paced a snail would end up faster than me.

I suppose a good way to know or understand me is to have a general idea of what my dream life would be; I want a home with a lot of land to garden, stable work (preferably freelance) with an income where I don’t have to be so careful with how I spend, and lots and lots of leisure time. This is basically the barest minimum of a dream life I would love to have.

If I were to go further than the minimum, I would even mention just how big that home I want to be, how gigantic the land would be with all the fruits, vegetables and flowers I want to plant, and just how much I wish I didn’t have to care about the money I spend — whether for personal spending or donations to whatever charity/cause.

Alas, it is but a dream. 

But I suppose the serious answer would be for me to die not wholly satisfied with my life. 

This would be my biggest fear simply because I am not nearly as satisfied with my life as much as I want right now. I love doing most of what I do now, like reading, sometimes writing, and all the hobbies I’ve mentioned before but the little mental calendar and time slots I have in my noggin isn’t something the rest of the world follows.

Most of my leisure time is spent reading and watching videos, which is something I currently find frustrating; some time ago, maybe a few months prior, there was a period of time where I had to solely focus on some academic work. This was when I ended up not being able to play more of my favourite video games, even less than I already have since the start of college life.

That’s just a little of my frustrations in life that leave that feeling of dissatisfaction lingering at the back of my mind, constantly shadowing the things that I am satisfied with.

I’ve mentioned my dream life before, and it’s pretty obvious just how far a goal post I would have set for myself if that was the actual life I was striving for.

But I want that big home that can house everyone and everything I love, that land that will grow the garden and orchard I wanted since I was still small and I watched a Barbie about two best friends who moved into a cottage together. I don’t want all the money in the world, but I want all I can have to spend on all of these and more; donate to charities and those in need, sponsor sustainable energy and living. And maybe in many people’s eyes, I am asking for all the money in the world. And, gods, I want so much more time.

However, I’m not the type of person to struggle for the impossible, or the improbable, whatever you want to call it. Like I said before, I’m self-aware enough to know my limits and what is possible with what I have right now. I’m aware of how I as the person I am now would do it; maybe that will change in the future, we don’t know right now. 

I know when and how to settle for what I can rather than what I want. 

I can be satisfied with what I can rather than what I want.

When my time comes, maybe I will be able to look back on this and decide whether I truly was.

I have a wild imagination. If my head isn’t full of what to buy from the store or the latest topic from a lesson, it’s characters in my head in situations that amuse me; it’s lyrics that flow back and forth as those same characters dance to its music; it’s the things I should’ve done and said different after a conversation or some kind of other social interaction; it’s how gracefully that butterfly I can see from the kitchen slowly glides down to a flower on the ground; it’s how loudly the cats cry for food even though they were just fed not too long ago; it’s how softly the birds sing close to noon compared to when the sun has just risen; it’s the life I keep dreaming of when my mind slips even the slightest.

That’s what keeps me going. 

It’s teasing my little sister until she tries to hit me with the towel we use to wipe the dishes dry. It’s lying down on top of my older sister’s back and rolling around until she bucks me off after she’s done choking on her laughter and my weight on her back. It’s talking like bros to my dad about what he saw on his phone and his ‘dad lore’. It’s greeting Mama ‘good morning’ on the phone and talking to her whenever she’s on a phone call with Papa. 

It’s seeing the notification pop up about a new message from the group chat of my friends from back before I moved away. It’s hugging my friends in class and talking about whether or not we’ve done the assignment due in two days. It’s overthinking whether I should have said that specific phrase or not while talking to other people.

It’s hugging our cats and squeezing them against my chest. It’s walking our dog to the spot where he usually does his business. It’s waking up to at least one of our cats lying down with me on the bed.

It’s the characters and tales from all the games I love to play, the stories I love to read and the shows I love to watch. It’s the music I play while washing the dishes. It’s the art I see in real life and in online. 

It’s the green of the leaves outside after a few days of drizzling rain. It’s spotting a bird or a few flying close by the window of the kitchen and hearing their songs. It’s watching the flowers slowly bloom as I pass them by each day.

It’s a little bit of what could’ve been, but even when it's the shadow is always lingering at the back of my mind, what keeps me going is what I have now.