To The Girl I Used To Be And The Woman I’m Becoming 

By

I opened my book,
I realized it’s my new chapter,
I realized it is now a different story,
Of different characterization.
Where I’m no longer a child,
A baby girl, a favored college student.
I’m not the kid who used to play all afternoon time,
I’m not the girl who smile and rests all day long,
I’m not the lady who comes and goes to school.
Busy with my playmates and dirt.
Busy with my assignments, outputs, and project.
Busy with my reports, activities, and thesis.
No, I’m not. I’m not anymore.
I’m not the one who I used to be.
A child who loves to wonder,
Who loves to draw my dreams,
Who loves to make fun of all things.

‘Cause today, I’m a grown woman.
A woman who has to have a different perspective towards life and future,
A woman who has to have strong personality in order to overcome trial and pressures,
I have to be that woman who puts her family first than herself,
Because she knows that she’s growing up while her parents are growing old.
I have to be a woman who is selfless.
For my siblings, to give their best,
A friend to look up to, to look them as the best.
To be their strength in all things.
To be everything to them.
To give everything for them,
Even their dreams.
It’s my payback time.
I have to make it up for them.
I have to, I must, and I want to.

If I were to ask, I want to go back to my days where all my days are free,
Where all my days are quiet,
Where all my days are full of endless laugh,
Where all my days I do nothing, but thinking.
But now, if I’m not mistaken,
After the celebration where everything is black.
Does black symbolize emptiness?
Does black symbolize a new start?
Is it fresh? Is it smooth? Is it rough?
All I know for now is the word “doubt.”
Doubt in myself.
I doubt myself, as I always do.

As I walk through a blank space,
Through an empty road,
I have reached its dead-end,
I stopped and held the doorknob.
I keep thinking about it.
Talking to myself every night.
Assessing myself, evaluating myself.
Same questions go out,
“Why am I full of doubt?”
“Am I ready to do this?”
“Am I afraid to face this?”
The door called “Door of Responsibilities”
The door I didn’t meant to open,
The door where realization of life boomed in front of me,
The door which I never imagined that will come where I know my easy days will be gone.
That door leads me to imagine a glimpse through my windows,
The scene is good,
It is warm, it is precious.
It is lively, it is blissful.

A life I live to dream,
A life I dream to live.
I may not be ready to enter that door,
But the time has come,
The time has come for me to grow up,
The time has come for me to live it up,
It is the time when I have to offer my hands to help,
The time when I know I’ll be needed.
The time when I don’t just care for myself.
The time when I have to start to begin.