A Letter to Myself Throughout the Decade 💌

[ CW: non-consequential suicidal ideology ]

To the me from ten years ago... hello!!

Writing this is 26-year-old Eva who has been working in video production for 4 years now and is still blogging, doing online karaoke, and many of the things you already loved in your time! And I have some pretty exciting news. :>

Sixteen-year-old junior in high school, huh? I imagine this must have been the time when I felt the most pressure about figuring out my future; yet having absolutely no idea, no real ambitions, no pull of direction in the slightest, not even the expectation of staying alive for too much longer...
Well good news! I not only survived—this Eva is now living strong, and she's not who you would've ever expected to become.

[ 2010 ]

Right now you're surrounded by peers all diligently preparing for their futures; it seems like everyone has laid out their exact plan—the colleges to aim for, the strategies towards becoming a more favorable applicant, which glorious major to flourish in, which ambitious profession to tackle. Meanwhile I was stagnant, lost, and in denial.... I literally couldn't envision myself being in college and I'd crumble at the thought of ever becoming an adult. Frankly I imagined that Life would've taken me out in some way or another before reaching that breaking point—whether through my unstable mental health, my physical health which had been sacrificed for grades, my generally bad luck, or my high proneness to accidents lolol. (thankfully was wrong 💓)

That next year I was forced to make a decision on a major—it was in my econ class at the library where we were presented a daunting set of career books, when I came across the job description of an Audio Engineer and thought, "Huh....... they don't make much money but at least this doesn't make me want to die." And that's 100% why I ran with it. At the time I was learning to mix covers and make videos, but hadn't considered that a profession related to these hobbies was possible :O!! And then upon realizing that audio engineering is also involved in video games, shows, and cartoons (fun fact: my childhood unrealistic dream was to write/illustrate books about pixies and turn it into an animated series ✨) that vaguely navigated me towards getting my degree in Radio-TV-Film!

I had always thought that ages 16-18 were too young to have had figured out a defined path—and yet society expected an elaborate blueprint and treated me as the odd one, the irredeemably irresponsible one, as if I'd set myself up for certain failure....... Well you know what, I was fucking right! Some of the realizations over these past 10 years that have comforted me the most have been about how no one under 40 has truly figured their lives out!!! People stray from their chosen paths all the time; it takes time to learn what gives you fulfillment and that's nothing to be ashamed of. Many people are doing well in fields unrelated to what they studied—or even without college—and that's fine and cool! Certainty early on isn't necessarily better. It haunted me all this time and took me til age 26 to realize that it's actually okay for me to not know how to be a fully functional adult yet.
I just do what I can and that's great. Past Me did what she could and that's great 😁 There's absolutely nothing I regret about not doing more back then. It's always taking it a step at a time.

A pivotal moment that helped me in college! { Food for Thought: Uncertainty & Failure }

~✨~✨~

I'm glad that you made it though past the unimaginable future!! In all honesty that summer before college started, I was shocked and frankly disappointed that my predicted fate didn't come to be.. Thankfully I'm a coward so I decided to just hang on, but resigned to "live as if I were dead." It has been a long and ongoing journey of working on myself, building a version of myself that feels alive and is happy to be so. I think this year I finally somewhat got there. These days I don't even question my purpose or dread my existence! I'm honestly so, so, so proud of myself for that—good job working on it with so much delicate care throughout the years!!

Years have been spent apathetically, bored of life, struggling to look forward to anything.... It's a wonderful accomplishment simply within itself that I didn't give up on myself or let the pessimism swallow me entirely—over and over I forcefully set goals to train myself to appreciate good things, do things for myself, reject stagnation, cherish the little sparks of joy, broaden my tunnel vision, remind myself to be my own hero. Never did I quite fully hit all the marks I set, but thank you Eva for always trying!! This post { Colors ✨ } touches a bit on my recent outlook improvement journey ;u;

[ 2012 ]

If there's a learning I'd want to tell my past self regarding mental health, it'd be to not fear or embrace to The Voice of The Void. Especially when I'm driving, I often encounter extremely negative disruptions in my thoughts—the "demon in my head" I used to call it, who always gives the worst fucking advice ever. Why is it so obsessed with wanting to see a car drive into a railing for no reason? Why is it so obsessed with me?? It's been many years, I don't carry suicidal ideologies anymore, my life is developing brilliantly, I have things to live for, I have a great support network, I'm a lot more in tune with myself than before, I usually want to make it to my destination.

But although it stops being as loud and obnoxious, the Voice doesn't go away. It made the world of difference when I finally started recognizing that it was not my true voice; it may be in my head but it's not me. Since the disowning, I've learned to drown it out and it's even become this sort of Mental Boy Who Cried Wolf like, "oh you're back! haha you say that but I know you don't mean it lololol nice try but I can't be tricked anymore, silly!" see also: "I'm sorry Secret Siren but I'm blocking out your calls!"

~✨~✨~

My college years were filled to the brim with anxiety and self-doubt—there's plenty I claim I'd tell my Past Self but I know that I wouldn't have believed a word of it haha. This post { Food for Thought: To Be Special Without Specialty } sums up very well my whole complex of feeling unskilled and unworthy of any employer—and then after an unexpected hiring immediately out of college thanks to a professor seeing something in me and lots of appreciation from my colleagues, my learnings around how skill isn't everything and I have more to offer than I thought!

Mostly I'm thankful to myself for stubbornly sticking to what I felt was right, against seemingly everyone's judgment. I'd always been plagued with the pressures of having to support my family, be the one to quench all of their financial worries, work as much as possible for a bigger paycheck—and it had been a major stressor up until recently. I chose to work in a field that will probably never make me a lot of money; in fact despite my pay being decent and having earned a handful of raises, I have friends that easily make twice my salary.... And I've accepted that it's okay for me to not desire much beyond a simple comfortable life and I've had to painfully force others to accept it as well. ^^;; Also many people seemed to think it was a "waste" for me—a valedictorian in high school—to pursue a humanities/art field, but Big Sux 4 them... And throughout college I worked part time in accounting so there were people who really hoped I'd transfer over orz;; but I stuck to my guts!

[ 2015 ]

I would like to have encouraged my college-aged self though to have more fun! Experience being young and possibly irresponsible! Make memories and gather stories that I regret not having. One of my bosses (an awesome lady whom I consider a mentor) taught me to manage stressors by asking the question: will this matter in a year? In hindsight, my college grades don't matter at all now. In hindsight, it would've made an insignificant impact had I taken on slightly less work and made less money.

~✨~✨~

So where am I now? As I mentioned throughout the post, doing much better and approaching everything in a healthier way!! ♥ Last year I had a lung collapse that made me mentally [and socially, oh god all the insurance phone calls] stronger. One of my improvements over the decade I'm proudest of has been my growth in confidence! Still working on learning better self care, time management, and balance.

I still have a lot of insecurity over my job—a lingering complex over feeling unskilled and just not really having much to show for—but I know that I do great work and I'm literally irreplaceable. ^^;; (Who else would be able to do quick-turn video editing, complex audio editing, sound recording, basic motion graphics, sometimes operate a camera, sometimes lowkey producing, AND accounting?!)

My next challenge will be one of my biggest ever..... My bosses have given me the incredible privilege of 🔹 directing a music video 🔹. It's not a client project but one designed to be learning experience for our company and some of our close colleagues—and having no real experience with directing or being deeply involved in the creative aspects of pre-production, this is gargantuan and terrifying. I'm so fucking scared, but somebody's faith in me led to this chance to do something I've always thought would be amazing to work on; and it's really cool that I can inject a little bit of myself and my inspirations into what's going to be a gorgeous video! But first, a lot of work to do.

Thanks for making it this far, both in this post and in your journey! As always, fighting!!!

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