To be who I am

9/7/11
Dreams are like clouds, when you see them you will try to touch them, but when you actually touch them, they just simply fade into nothingness. I have never really thought about who I really was, you see, when you are still alive there is just no point in having a representation of yourself. But now, I rethought the question, and I found out that it is very important to find our true identity. I thought maybe that was why God sent us on Earth, you know, to complete the task of finding the reason. Joyce Mayer once said, “A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.”, and I fully believe in this. And my dream tells me who I am.  I have such a myriad number of dreams, and no matter how small they may be, they all are very important to me. And my biggest dream is to be a manga artist. Manga is Japanese comic books. My dreams are all the reasons why I am living here and now. They give me the strength to survive school; they give me hope whenever life is hard; and most importantly, they let me found the true desire of my life.
My dreams are really helping me to be excited for school. Since I really did not have many friends, honestly, I questioned why I am alive. Except for my family, no one loves me. And even my family, they only love me because we are blood related. I can go to school and do not need to say a word in a whole day. I know, at first, it was because I never had the nerve to speak in English, since I came here two years ago, so I was really afraid that I would get the grammar or pronunciations wrong. But now that I have that I have confidence, I might have already lost my chances, and in other people’s minds I was already in the “the boring/quiet type of person” category. And now that I have some “friends”, I feel like I am just acting a person that is definitely not me. I always thought that at the end, I will die quietly, without people noticing. But then I found manga, and the simple desire of reading it became dreams. I had lots of dreams, and it makes me want to live as long as possible to achieve it. At first, my dreams were small, just to make me have hopes for a day, like: I can read manga after I survive school, somehow that actually made me excited to go to school. But then my dreams start to build up like a snow ball rolling on the ground, and finally one day, I decided that, drawing is what I am meant to do. So after I survive high school, my dream shall send me to Japan and draw mangas for my favorite manga magazine, Shonen Jump. Just as Joyce Mayer said, literally, a number two pencil is taking me closer to my dreams.
Dreams are the only ones to rely on when life is not treating you well. This week, my family discovered that my grandma has lung cancer, and she is at the end of her life. Yes, she is older than all the average people that dies, but that does not mean that we are prepared. Before, I only visit her twice a year, so I did not even learn what exactly is my grandma’s personality like, and now that she does not have much time I really want to get to know her better. It was miserable to think that someone who was perfectly alive just vanishes into thin air. But sadly, this is not the most heart breaking part of this, my mom is. She was the foundation of our family, since I do not live with my dad. So if she breaks, our whole family is going to fall apart. At the first day, she was crying the whole day. She wound not cry in front of me or my sister, but we all can hear her sobbing in her room. I would actually want her to show her true side in front of us, because it feels sadder when she was just trying really hard to smile at us. So my dream right now is to make my mom happier. And it makes me smile no matter what might happen.
 My dream made me realize what is it that I really want to do in my life. My biggest dream, to be a manga artist, sounds really stupid to a lot of adults. At first, when I just learned how to draw, my parents encouraged me, and helped me. But when I start to spend more time on drawing than on my homework, things started to change. My grade was still “A”s and “A+”s, but apparently my parents were not satisfied, and it was same to their friends. Every time I say that I want to draw for a living, before they are laughed and did not say much, but then they start saying that I should be more mature and I should choose a more realistic dream, like getting a good score on SAT, or choosing a university that I will want to go. They all said that drawing can just be a hobby; it does not have to be professional. And I should have a backup plan when I fail. But if I do not try and always do have another easier way out, I will never achieve my dream. I feel like Got made me and sent me here was because I should draw to make other’s lives happier, and give them a break from all the stress in life.
My dream is my life. Because of my dreams I am still living, and I want to live longer to do whatever it takes to achieve them. They are the fuel to make me go to school, no matter how lonely I am; they are the light and hope that directs me out of misery; they are the true identity of me. Do you want to be the kind of robot all our parents want? Do you want to be as same as others living a super ordinary life? Do you want to just live the life your parents designed for you the moment you were born? If the answer is no, find your dream, and most importantly, no matter how hard it is, achieve it!