Summary: I resigned from my job to write a book.

I've been thinking: this is honestly the stupidest thing I've ever done. It's been a tough decision for me and everyone is really pissed off. I upset my parents, my grandma will probably disown me and I am squeezed in my aunt's schedule to give me a talk about my recent resignation. Whenever I think about what they're going to say, I start to imagine that it's nothing I've never heard before because they talk to me all the time. Long story short, they've always seen me as a failure even though having proven them wrong by graduating elementary, finishing high school and getting out of college. Having viewed as that for as long as I've been existing, the talk is normal to me. They make sure I do the right thing and I don't wander too far from the path they want me to be in.

But I don't want to walk the road they all point me to. They push me everywhere and anytime they get a chance to and sometimes it's good but most time I just feel like being choked. The first job I've had was from this ty company with a ty management and they weren't even running the business with a legal permit so I quit that one. They didn't mind because I told them the company has an expired business permit and they were under a lot of debt with taxes and all that stuff. The second job I got (a day after I resigned from my first one) was at a call center. I excelled in there, being a graduate of Communications, I communicated as how I am expected to and exceeded their expectations of me as I have no experience in this field or in any field at all.

It was good until I realized I didn't want to answer calls nor did I want to sit in front of a computer all day answering 20 to 30 calls for eight hours. My brain didn't work as much as it does when I'm writing. After New Year's, I said I would go back to writing and drawing, to release the stress of being yelled at half the time by customers because they didn't like the guidelines I was told to follow. I tried to paint, I never finished because I couldn't start. I sat outside the house with all my materials but I couldn't even decide which color I'd start using. I had no subject. I had no feeling. I was blank.

And then I tried writing. I ended up with 18 drafts of blog posts because I wanted to release the stress if not through art then through words. 18 of those drafts contained two that had the word '' and 'hell' on repeat. I knew I was going nowhere. I couldn't even write an update. I was feeling nothing. I was empty. I had no color in my head. I'm black and white.

Days passed and I dragged myself to work, cried before bed and after I woke up. It was a routine for about two and a half weeks. I moved out of the apartment and moved back into the house with my parents, thinking they can relieve me from stress, but I still found myself dreading to go to work and crying after shift.

I got into a minor vehicular accident entering the month of February, badly sprained my wrist and almost fractrured it and the office gave me 4 days to rest. Those 4 days I thought about it really hard. Whether to quit my job and pursue writing or keep my job and feel empty for who knows how long. I thought about what to choose: my happiness or theirs?

I've been told writing is an artistic pursuit and the chance of getting my work published, there's no guarantee. Success is not guaranteed. My mother is very much against the idea and my grandmother and aunt are definitely going to think I'm crazy for even thinking I have a shot in this. But that's something I'll never know if I don't try.

So I made the jump.

I'm going to hit a lot of rocks and who knows when my parachute is going to open. I'm going to get an earful from my mother all the time and she's probably going to tell me I'm just as useless as I've been in the past few years and my grandmother is probably going to tell me to stop. But I know I won't.

When I die, it's not their life they think was wasted because they lived it according to how other people wanted them to. It's mine. I think it's my call to make. It had always been. Even though I've heard so much from my mom alone these past few days, I can still breathe knowing tomorrow when I wake up, I'm still going to do what I love. I'm not making money like most of my classmates are and probably other 21 year-olds out there, but what I am part of is the percentage of 21 year-olds who made the jump to follow their passion.

The world can call it stupid but you can't really tell a free mind what it's supposed to do and what she's supposed to be. Even though I'm never running out of new lows to hit, that only means I'm never not trying. I would love my family's support, but if they can't give it now, I hope someday they can at least believe something good will happen to me.

I'd like to thank AFF for being my sanctuary in times I feel like I'm nothing. It reminds me in here, I'm a writer. Not the best, but I still am. And there are other aspiring writers in here and readers whose imaginations are limitless. To be part of a community with endless imaginations expressed through words, that alone really inspires me to continue on. :)

- Dani