It's been a tiring few weeks. Applications, interviews, lots of highs and lows, expectations unmet, friendships struck and friendships waning...what else is going to happen?
It's 1am, I should go to sleep. I'm generally more upbeat than this.
When I think though, of the choices I have in life, it astounds me...just a few decades ago it's likely that at my age, with my background, I would be a mother. Maybe uneducated. In a low-wage job, or not having a job at all. With limited access to healthcare, to new opportunities, to travel, to achieve many of the current markers of success. Possibly lonely, if I moved away from my home to marry. Probably not having much freedom to socialize, particularly with the opposite gender.
Forget a few decades ago, women in many parts of the world still live like this today. Many women in Malaysia, too.
It is only by looking back and forth in time can I anchor myself in today and glimpse my role in it all. Women (and their families) before me have paved the road to make MY options possible, MY future as optimistic and impactful-on-a-large-scale as I dream now.
And so...maybe I need to relax a little. Just be grateful I am here, be thankful for these sisters and mothers who made it possible and are rooting for me from wherever they are.
And take up my load, willingly, and use what I have to make the way smooth for others.
