Picture Perfect

Has anyone ever told you that you live a picture perfect life or your family is picture perfect? Recently someone posted that my family was picture perfect and what I want to say to them is that they are completely wrong. Don't get me wrong my life isn't horrible, but its far from perfect. A little more than 25 years ago I was born in a car on the way to the hospital...not quiet the perfect birth huh? At 4 I had to deal with people making fun of me because I was Chinese...feeling like something was completely wrong with me because I looked different, didn't understand what people were saying...can you imagine at 4 having to deal with that? My family owns a restaurant and I use to to have to ride the city bus to get home or have to hitch a ride from someone, not that this is such a bad thing, but it was more of missing the having my parents around. Also I was always the "stupid" kid growing up. Since my mind processed most things in Chinese it made going to an American school really hard. I also had to take summer school from 1st - 8th grade just so I could pass each class and move on with my class so I really wouldn't be the laughing stalk or the kid that was left behind. Don't get me wrong a lot of kids get made fun of but how much does it suck to get made fun of for just being you? I mean how could I change my culture? In the mist of the struggle of trying to figure out my culture I also struggled with find God. At 9 years old I started to go to church and pretty much last about 2 months and that was about it at churches, because I struggled so much. At the age of 13 I had been to 11 churches already...at 14 I went on a mission trip that has forever changed my life. I am sure in a very positive way as well as a negative one...it has me thinking about God and has me wanting to find more about God...but it has also scared me so much that I am not sure I will ever find God. The 2nd to last night of the mission trip they told us to go up and get this light that was basically God's symbol of forgiving our sins. Throughout this whole entire lesson I had the shakes and after I walked up and got mine I sat back down my whole entire body was shaking and couldn't stop. I sat there for hours just shaking and crying uncontrollably. Even now when I think about that day my whole body shakes, its such an uncontrollable thing and so weird and scary to me. After this incident I left church and it wasn't until almost 4 years that I ever went back to church. And about 2 years later I was sitting in Sunday service and began shaking and crying all over again. And left again...and here I am a little more than 5 years later I am still scared to even go into a church. I think about it every single day but every single day I chicken out. There has been a few times that I have stepped into a church and its as if my whole entire body closes on me and the feeling come back. So to have a picture perfect life means struggling in finding God...and to have these uncontrollable feelings. When I was 13 I dealt with depression and a couple of times I almost lost the battle. I was at such a dark place and began cutting myself. A couple of times I wanted to take my car off the road...a few times I sat on the edge of a cliff. There wasn't anything that could be said to make me feel better. Everything that was said to me actually made things worse. At that time I felt like a piece of crap...I felt like this world would be a million times better without me. I couldn't see that my life was valuable in anyway at all. I swore that my life meant nothing and that I was only making things and lives around me worse. I started to go to therapy where they told me I had a learning disability which made me feel even worse about myself and that I was just as bad as I really truly thought. The therapist made me feel worse and every time I went I left feeling worse. I also felt like everyone had turned their back on me. The people I trusted the most were the ones that "turned" me in...I felt so betrayed and couldn't understand why these people would do that to me. At 17 I struggled again this time not as bad but brought back lots of bad memories and became very scary for me. And there are still times that I get scared and wonder about it all, but I am choosing to fight through it. At 18 I started college and a job...I was working about 30 hours a week and had 18 hours of class. Unfortunately that wasn't the best idea. At 19 I was kicked out of college for having a 1.4 gpa and fought to get back in by taking a class...I was allowed back in but then kicked back out the next semester because I couldn't get my gpa up high enough but I did fight to stay another semester. At 20 I thought it was smart to quit my job because of something stupid and then a few months later I was kicked out of college. I went back to my job but then later that year I wanted to get a full time job so I took a miserable full time job that I only last 2 months, mainly bc I was still working at my first job on contract and didn't want to let them down. I then worked with an after school program barely making minimum wage and busting my butt at another job that started at 5 am and went straight to my next job and did this for a few months just to survive and pay my bills. At the end of the year I decided that it wasn't for me and so I applied to go back to school and got back in to a community college, but still worked both jobs actually I then was asked to come back to my original job in a new way. So I worked 3 jobs and went to school. I kept all three jobs until that summer and did school, I also went to summer school and worked one job. I continue to work my butt off and to go to school to earn a degree. It was not easy at all it was so hard to work all the hours I needed to work to pay the bills, to put school first over my job and prove that I could do this as well help with the family business. I went to community college for 2 years and then fought my way back into the university. I struggled for the next 2 years where I have finally earned my degree a year and a half ago. It was such a struggle but I knew I had to fight to do it and make my life better. So instead of giving up and sitting around just settling I fought for 6 years to get a degree. I definitely got lucky and had a great support system and they are the reason why I survived this path. Now after working so hard for almost 7 years I haven't really advanced in my career and its so hard, but I know I will survive. Getting close to 2 years since I graduated but I am fighting every day for a better life. Don't get me wrong its hard and it hurts like heck, and its also treated me well but I've done what I can do and its time to make the next steps and better myself right? So instead of sitting around complaining about how other people's have it better, shouldn't we just do something about it? I know that sometimes things are out of my hand, but why be lazy about it? And this is just a small part of my life I am willing to talk about, can you imagine what else I have going on? And it doesn't even include the lives of the people around me or even my family craziness. Would you really consider my life picture perfect? I am not sure that I would say that, but I would say that I have fought to be where I am now. So people that want to complain about their lives or complain that my life is perfect, think again...I have fought to be where I am today!