My Survival Journey
2021 has been a remarkable and unforgettable year for me full of revelations that I never thought I would gain in such a short timeframe.
On January 4th, I almost died from a 23cm retroperitoneal tumour that displaced all my major organs. I went under a 9 hours laparotomy surgery and luckily I survived against all odds. It really put life into perspective for me. It felt like I tasted death and for the first time, I really internalised the fine line between life and death. In the moment of realising my tomorrow wasn’t promised to arrive - my dreams and aspirations, love I had for others, all collapsed into thin air in front of me. As if nothing ever mattered and ever will. I understood in that moment that life is truly unpredictable and the only one thing you could grasp on to is the now.
On March 4th, a candle I lit up almost burned down my whole house and would’ve killed my family. When I discovered a fire, it was 2cm away from blowing up my whole box of perfumes all lined up next to each other. Thankfully, the only things that got damaged was my burned walls, wardrobe, and bed.
Around mid May, my mom offered me a business opportunity to take over a beauty clinic and become an entrepreneur. I only just began to walk up-straight without pain or having to hold my abdominal stable due to how deep the incision was from the surgery. I had no planning nor preparation of how to start a business but I knew that opportunities like this don’t always come so I said yes despite knowing I was not ready, AT ALL. But as Eminem raps, “You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo”. I knew I had nothing to lose so I bite my tongue and jumped on the ride.
On October 21st, as I’m writing this it would have had just happened last Thursday, I closed down my business due to some legal liabilities the previous owner was involved. I didn’t want to risk being pulled in so I decided to return the clinic back. On top of this reason, there is also that it was so difficult to break even and the cost was simply getting way too high to manage. Inevitably, I felt like a failure. I question if I tried hard enough, if I did or didn’t do certain things, would’ve the outcome been differently. Never have I thought I would’ve been someone who just wanted to stay in bed and do nothing but drown in my self-pity for two weeks, that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t know what to do or where to go next and I felt ashamed to go to the meetings I’ve arranged with others who I deem had their “shit together”. As I’m writing this blog, I’m slowly pulling myself out of this pit to share my ideas with you and hopefully everything I learned/will learn in this journey of life would potentially inspire you the way it did for me.