YVALIKS

As I am approaching the date of a milestone birthday, my brain constantly wants to replay past memories, mostly to bring me to these really daunting questions:

What have you achieved so far?

Did you get what you wanted?

Are you happy with where you are now?

The actual responses to these are no, no and no. The reality is that I feel like I haven’t achieved much and I did not get some of the things I hoped, dreamt and prayed for. I was constantly trying to forge my path and yet kept coming up short. I have more questions than answers about my own journey. I think that I have failed a lot, despite my many efforts. There have been so many rejections, setbacks and unexpected moves.

It did not happen like I expected, It actually went towards a direction I could not have ever imagine.

I have come to the realisation when I turned 30 that I was a late bloomer, a somewhat woman-child or a fake adult.

This is actually the case for many millennials though. We have not quite forged similar paths as the previous generations.

Many of us are still unmarried, do not have children or struggle to get on the property ladder.

Then I got a reminder recently of how late bloomers still bloom.

I am a massive cinema lover and this past awards season in Hollywood, saw a very particular movie steals all the awards : ‘Everything, Everywhere, All at once’. Two of its main actors kept winning the big categories: Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. Both of them have been in the movie industry for decades and won their first Oscars at the age of 61 and 51 years old.

Ke’s story moved me the most. He was a child actor and actually starred in one of my favourite Indiana Jones movies: ‘Temple of Doom’. He also starred in the 80s classic ‘The Goonies’. But after these movies, he struggled to find roles again as an adult in Hollywood. This was mostly because there were not many roles written for Asian actors in the industry. This led him to stop auditioning and actually step away from acting. He stated that it’s only when he saw the success of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ in 2019, that he decided to try again 30 years later. Now his comeback role led him to win an Oscar, a Golden Globes and others multiple awards. His joy throughout the season was everything, everywhere, all at once.

Interestingly, as he was winning, he was meeting other peoples that were on his journey: Stephen Spielberg who gave him his first role and his co-star Harrison Ford were attending some of this awards shows. He also had a sweet reunion with Brendan Fraser who he starred alongside in Encino Man in the 90s. Brendan also won major accolades after years of being snubbed by Hollywood, including best actor for his role in the movie ‘The Whale’. It’s almost as the pieces of a puzzle coming all together for Ke. I think his life alone could be turned into a great movie.

In his Oscars’ acceptance speech, Ke got emotional citing the people who supported him during all these years and reminding people of his humble beginnings when he left his home country on a boat. He spent months in a refugees camp as a child before arriving in America. Tearfully holding on to his golden statue, he went on to invite people to continue to pursue their dreams and not give up.

It is truly beautiful to see that this all happened because he was inspired to try again.

Discouragement and emotional tiredness will always creep in our pursuits.

As I wrote in my previous post, we ought to walk this journey of life with a scale holding potential joy and potential hurt on each side.

As much as we murmured to our self: ‘what if I fail?’; we need to also whisper: ‘what if I win?’

‘What if there is something beautiful on the other side of my perseverance and faith?’

‘What if I am actually one day, one month or one year away from one of my dreams becoming true?’

I am a late bloomer.

I have always been in a way.

Regardless of what I have or not achieved, I am the sum of all my experiences, good and bad.

Somehow I believe that all the failures, all the rejections, all the losses were all part of a bigger story.

It is like I am in a middle of the ride, in the part where it is the most scary, the most difficult.

I am waiting for the drop.

Late bloomers do bloom, they just do it later…