I daydream a lot. Nineteen years of my life have been a long rollercoaster, full of unexpected ups and downs. To bear with surprises, I adapted the habit of avoiding the shock by daydreaming. I detached myself away from my current situation to find the reason for living.
During the winter break, I found out that I have glaucoma, an eye disease that can slowly take away vision. It was a fresh shock to me because up until that moment I have never dreamed of myself blind in the future. To calm my mom who was freaking out about the news, I pretended that it did not hit me at all. My mom went as far as bringing me back to Korea (I am an international student) in order to get regular check ups and get the most care I can get at home. In the beginning I was tempted to do as she said, to take a break from school and just do whatever at home. However, I knew I would regret it in the future for setting my illness as my priority even before my dreams of becoming a biomedical researcher. I want to live my life with so much energy as I see it in my daydreams and the disease only makes it more entertaining as it adds in new aspects.
As I am writing this, my alarm will go off in a minute to remind me to put in the eye drop. For the rest of my life I wouldn't have a choice but to put in the medicine twice everyday, stay stress-free, have healthy diet and so forth in order to maintain my sight. I took vision as something I was granted for but now it's what I need to put in effort to keep that privilege.
Rather than living in the slump or in my imagined world, I grew to live with the new side of me not with halfhearted grudge but with complete acceptance. Life brings so many challenges that shape who I am and how I need to change in order to survive. I am still fearful of more downs that will affect me yet I kind of enjoy the thrill. The feeling of hopelessness when confronted with shocks makes me feel most human with the sense of living than dreaming.
I was hesitant to write about why do I do what I do because I feel like I'm not doing anything; I haven't accomplished anything to title myself of what I do for living. However, at this moment, I am living along thousands of other students at UCLA, constantly knocked over by problems with relationships, health and grades, because that makes me feel like I am trying to live my life at its fullest potential, adjusting my perspective here and there.
Comments