Purposefully

By: Rachel T.

No matter how you lose your purpose in life, it’ll be heart-shattering. The buildup to this epiphany will be the most emotionally, mentally, and physically draining moments of your life, and bluntly, it happens to almost everyone.

Everything that I’ve built up for myself: the years of studying and staying up until 3 am to finish assignments, keeping straight A’s, maintaining an above average GPA, and working my ass off doing the most just to look good on college applications: it all dissolved into nothing. Nothing mattered anymore, and everything suddenly seemed unclear. Leading up to this moment, waves of depression, anxiety and straight up mental breakdowns were recurrent to everyday life.

The obstacles I’ve overcome growing up couldn’t have compared to the one I faced in May of 2020. For years, I was able to foresee my future; I made goals to become a medical professional. I saw myself saving lives. I meticulously planned all the steps I’d take to get there.

But when I couldn’t save the one person I planned my future out for, what was the point anymore?

Exactly a month after being admitted into the hospital, my grandmother passed away due to multiple underlying health conditions all erupting at once, ultimately shutting down her system. All health conditions that I knew about. Yet they were the health conditions that were incurable.

For an entire month, I watched my purpose, the one person I wanted to succeed for, deteriorate in front of me without me being able to help. The total of four video calls I was able to have with her during her hospital stay due to the pandemic live forever in my mind, with “I love you’s” and “you’ll get better” chanted like a prayer. Still, I wasn’t able to say goodbye.

I didn’t have superpowers, but I hoped that maybe, just maybe, I could have made up a cure overnight to help her feel better: a cure for her to live just one more day so I could say my goodbyes, and tell her she means the world to me.

I couldn’t.

After her passing, I no longer had a sense of direction. I was like a lost child, roaming aimlessly around a dark forest with no clear path in mind. My mind was wandering, trying to escape from the emotional turmoil I would have to face if I woke up from my daze.

In the weeks leading up to my grandmother’s passing, I pushed and pushed until all the fuel I had coursing through me ran dry. I pushed so hard to still attend online school, making most of the education available to me in the unpredictable times. I stepped on the pedal in hopes that when my grandma came home, she’d see how hard I was working and how much I wanted her to be proud of me.

But suddenly her health declined, and on May 20th, 2020 she passed.

From then on, I ran out of gas. I no longer knew why I was trying so hard, and what I was pushing myself for. I consequently failed the AP test that I spent weeks studying for, but I could not have cared less. It all meant nothing to me, and I felt like nothing I did mattered because what was the point?

Weeks bled into months and slowly everything became a blur of routine once distance learning began the following school year. I’d wake up, log onto Zoom and just sleep throughout the classes. I’d do the work that was assigned, but put minimal effort into it.

And most importantly, I blamed myself.

I thought that by doing all this, by putting my future in jeopardy because I thought that I was the reason my grandmother passed away, even when there was absolutely zero chance of it being possible, was the punishment I deserved.

For months, it was what I genuinely believed, and for months, I was only hurting myself.

That was, until about 10 months after her passing. I finally realized that there was something wrong with me and my coping mechanisms, and that I might have needed professional help. I wasn’t eating, and I was living a life that no longer had meaning.

I lost touch with everyone around me: friends, family, even my parents.Without their concern, I would have only fallen further down the rabbit hole of self-blame and hatred.

My parents fought the stigma of being Asian parents with a kid who needed mental health help, and reached out to doctors and psychiatrists, in search of bringing back the daughter they once had that was full of life and brightness.

And so, I began going to therapy.

After months of bottling everything into a bubble, I bursted. I realized that everything I blamed myself for wasn’t my fault and that I was simply just coping in a way that was more harmful than healing.

And so I slowly, but surely, found a way to cope in a healthier style. I learned that by holding onto this painful past and the weighing guilt that really had nothing to do with my doings would only deteriorate me. It’d only break me down.

I also came to the realization that this wouldn’t have been what my grandma wanted. She always encouraged me to be someone that people could rely on. Someone that did something because they wanted to, not because they felt obligated to do so.

You cannot worry and dwell on things that you don’t have control over. As I slowly surpassed this obstacle of my life - one that I am still battling with - I learned that you will always have a purpose in life, whether it’s changed or has stayed the same since you were a toddler.

Mine shifted drastically, though, from my grandmother to myself and the future I have yet to discover. My future helping and aiding people around me, and a future where I positively impact someone else.

For The Warrior Times, this is Rachel Tran.